Crypto Winter Is Nearing It's End

The recent cryptocurrency sell-off came some huge price increases for many coins last year. Bitcoin was up nearly 1300%t, ETH rose 8,000 % and Ripple surged above 32,000 % A 320x gain.

Even though the price rises were massive, some experts think that this year could be even bigger.

"We believe after February the market will likely go on a bull run comparative if not greater than last year potentially reaching the trillion-dollar mark before a proper crypto winter sets in where the market becomes more focused on proper market fundamentals," Jamie Burke, CEO at Outlier Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on blockchain investments, told CNBC by email on Tuesday.

Some companies like IOTA and NEO are trying to create blockchain platforms that developers can build on. Those applications can be powered by IOTA or NEO tokens. The same is true of ethereum. Mick Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Hercules Tech, a data science company focusing on blockchain and big data, said these are the digital coins that could see their prices appreciate the most this year.

"Utility tokens and assets with a working platform and a clear-cut reason for requiring both a blockchain and their own token, are more likely to appreciate in value this year. Some of these cryptoassets will not be used for years, meaning they have no utility value," Sherman told CNBC in an email on Tuesday.

The CEO warned that many of the blockchain projects could be years away and more bubbles could arise.

"The revolutionary nature of blockchain technology is what's driving the hype and even though we may be years away from viable blockchain-based assets, we may very well see several more bubbles," Sherman said.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/bitcoin-price-could-hit-50000-this-year-experts-say.html