Finance Association, April 8 (Editor Xiaoxiang) Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of blockchain startup Ripple (Ripple), said in a recent media interview that the total market value of the cryptocurrency market will exceed 5 trillion US dollars this year.

Garlinghouse said he expects the market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency market to double. He listed some macro factors, including approval of the US spot Bitcoin ETF listing at the beginning of the year and the upcoming so-called “halving” of Bitcoin.

Garlinghouse notes, “I've been working in this industry for a long time, and I'm used to seeing the ebb and flow of these trends. I'm very optimistic. I think macro trends — major events such as the Bitcoin spot ETF listing — are driving real institutional capital into the cryptocurrency industry for the first time.”

Garlinghouse said, “You'll see that this is driving demand, and while demand is increasing, supply is decreasing. It doesn't even require an economics expert to tell you what happens when supply shrinks and demand expands.”

On January 10 this year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the listing application for the first batch of US spot Bitcoin ETF products. They are allowed to be traded on the US stock exchange, and a large number of institutional and retail investors can use this to gain exposure to the most important cryptocurrencies without having to directly hold Bitcoin.

Bitcoin halving is a technical event that occurs approximately every four years in Bitcoin's history. The issuance of Bitcoin is limited by design — approximately every four years, mining rewards are “halved”, and in fact the number of new tokens issued is also halved. The last halving occurred in 2020, and the next one will happen later this month.

“The overall market capitalization of the cryptocurrency industry... is expected to easily double by the end of this year. Because the market is being affected by all these macro factors,” Garlinghouse said.

Statistics show that as of April 4, the total market value of the cryptocurrency market was about 2.6 trillion US dollars. If the market doubles in size, this means that the total cryptocurrency market capitalization will reach $5.2 trillion by then. This is close to the combined market capitalization of Microsoft and Nvidia, which are currently in the limelight — currently Microsoft's market capitalization is around $3.1 trillion, and Nvidia's is $2.2 trillion.

Bitcoin has accumulated a cumulative increase of over 140% over the past 12 months. Bitcoin hit a record high of over $73,000 on March 13, according to CoinGecko data. However, since then, the price of Bitcoin has fallen far below the $70,000 level. As of early April, Bitcoin's market capitalization accounted for “half” of the entire cryptocurrency market, about $1.36 trillion.

Will US regulation be more friendly to the coin community in the future?

Garlinghouse also said that another factor that is expected to drive the cryptocurrency market to a new high will be the possibility of a more industry-friendly regulatory momentum in the US.

This year is the US election year, and many cryptocurrency practitioners are optimistic that the next US administration's policy priorities will be more beneficial to the cryptocurrency industry.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under the current chairman Gary Gensler (Gary Gensler), has actually been quite strict in regulating and enforcing cryptocurrency companies (including Ripple itself) in recent years. The SEC has previously filed a securities lawsuit against Ripple, accusing it of illegally selling Ripple (XRP), a cryptocurrency closely linked to Ripple in an unregistered securities transaction. Ripple has denied the allegation and is now protesting.

“Actually, one of the things I want to talk about is macro-favorable factors for the industry: I think the (regulatory) situation in the US will be more clear,” Garlinghouse said. “The US is still the largest economy in the world, but unfortunately it has always been one of the more hostile countries in the cryptocurrency market. I think that's going to start to change.”

It's worth mentioning that Garlinghouse isn't the only coin giant predicting huge profits in the cryptocurrency market this year.

Marshall Beard, the chief operating officer of the US cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, also recently stated at a cryptocurrency conference in London that he expects the price of Bitcoin to double further to $150,000 later this year.

Editor/Somer