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The cryptocurrency market flourished in 2021 as Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies made new all-time highs. The high hopes from top cryptocurrencies led market participants and analysts to predict several bullish outcomes, most of which wouldn’t stand the test of time.
As Bitcoin price made new all-time highs in November 2021, the global crypto market cap soared to the $3 trillion mark. The hopium or high hopes from the asset class fueled a retail frenzy which came alongside bullish market predictions from investors, analysts, and famed traders.
However, 2022 had something else in store for crypto investors. Macroeconomic uncertainty, inflation, and Fed’s interest rate hikes didn’t spare the rather volatile crypto market. The epic price pullback that most cryptocurrencies suffered, has crushed the bullish predictions made in 2021.
Here are a few predictions about 2022 that may never come true:
Bitcoin (BTC) to $100K
Back in Q3 and Q4 2022, when Bitcoin price made higher highs finally charting the $69,000 all-time high quite a few bullish price predictions were made for 2022-end. Some predictions placed BTC’s price at $100K and even $162K.
With Bitcoin price oscillating below the $20,000 mark in Q4 2022, the bullish anticipations wouldn’t see the light of day. In 2021, Plan B’s Stock to Flow (S2F) model forecasted exceptionally high prices – as much as $100K by 2022 and $1 million by 2025 for Bitcoin.
PlanB’s worst-case scenario for BTC price was $135K by the end of 2021 which was way off the real yearly close of $45,600 that BTC recorded last year.
In addition, renowned analyst Willy Woo also placed a $162K year-end prediction for BTC. Woo went as far as saying that a $200K price mark is still possible for the coin by 2021-end. Woo also believed that BTC’s price wouldn’t fall below the $50,000 mark.
However, more recently, after the crypto winter struck Woo revised his prediction saying that the $30,000 level is the new $100K that the BTC price needs to eye this year.
No more bear markets
In a 2021 interview on the podcast What Bitcoin Did, Woo further mentioned that after the 2021 bull cycle there would be no bearish downturns in the cryptocurrency market. He stated that there wouldn’t be a full-blown bear market and BTC price would most likely keep fluctuating.
However, BTC price has charted an over 70% pullback, in fact, the larger market seems to be gripped in the arms of bears as most of the top cryptocurrencies are in double digits from their all-time highs.
Ether will outperform Bitcoin
In 2021 while both BTC and ETH made new all-time highs, ETH price significantly outperformed Bitcoin. Throughout October and November 2021, BTC noted close to 64% gains while ETH charted over 70% gains overshadowing Bitcoin gains at larger.
With the Ethereum Merge scheduled for September 2022, the larger market anticipated ETH’s price to skyrocket overshadowing BTC price action once again. The same, however, didn’t happen as ETH largely followed BTC’s footsteps.
At press time, both ETH and BTC had negative short-term and long-term ROIs. Ether’s yearly ROI stood at -65.48%, while Bitcoin’s ROI was at -68.30%.
USDC will overtake Tether as biggest stablecoin
USDC’s growth over the last year as the stablecoin’s market cap reached over $55 billion led many to believe that the coin would overtake USDT or Tether as the top stablecoin in the market.
At press time, however, USDT maintained its market monopoly as the third-largest digital asset by market capitalization. USDT’s market capitalization stood at $68.43 billion while USDC’s stood at $44.99 billion.
Even though USDC was right behind USDT in terms of market share the stablecoin still came second in the race.
Meme coins and metaverse tokens will explode
Meme coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) were in the news throughout 2021 mostly due to retail euphoria or Elon Musk-fueled rallies. Another market section that received immense social interest was Metaverse tokens like ApeCoin (APE) and Decentraland (MANA).
Metaverse tokens soared in price and popularity towards the end of 2021 while meme coins like DOGE and SHIB led market gains in Q3 2021. However, both meme tokens and metaverse coins lost their charm this year as market participants sought to invest in top assets.