This year, the industry has been cleared of speculators, and now it is ready for the arrival of a new class of investors, says Henri Arslanian from PwC.

Correction of the cryptocurrency market and Bitcoin cost reduction from $20,000 to $3,200 had a positive impact on the industry outlook, FinTech and Crypto Lead for Hong Kong and China at PricewaterhouseCoopers Henri Arslanian said. In his opinion, the industry has been cleared of speculators this year and is now preparing for the arrival of large players - institutional investors.

“I think a lot of things are changing on a global level. For example, take a look at regulatory clarity in 2018, a number of jurisdictions provided more regulatory clarity than we had before… I expect more of this to happen in 2019 and that will give even more comfort to institutional investors and players as well,” Arslanian said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Despite improvements in blockchain regulation, Wall Street companies are in no hurry to enter the market of digital money. Major banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Barclays have suspended the development of their cryptocurrency products due to the lack of demand among their customers.

At the beginning of the year, the value of Bitcoin may rise sharply due to the promotion, participants of which will withdraw their coins from exchanges to e-wallets. It will take place on January 3, 2019 in honor of the 10th anniversary of the creation of the genesis block in the network of the first cryptocurrency. The purpose of the event is to identify fraudulent crypto trading platforms.

“The promotion may have a short-term effect - an increase in the price of bitcoin. This will happen if there are more people who withdraw Bitcoin than those who deposit it. If bitcoin is withdrawn less than usual or similarly, then we will see slight fluctuations or a fall in the exchange rate,” said Alex Fadeev, a blockchain expert at Soft-FX.

He stressed that the promotion will not have a long-term impact on the cryptocurrency rate and the market as a whole. It is necessary that the number of transactions on the Bitcoin network in the first days of January increase by at least 30% in order for the event to be successful, otherwise it will not make any sense.