The cryptocurrency industry continues to attract a lot of investors and speculators. So far, we have seen two waves of major price momentum for Bitcoin and other currencies. The bigger question is whether or not we will seethe third wave, and if so, what we can expect from it. While it is impossible to predict the future,there is a lot of optimism forBitcoin right now.

The past nine years have been spectacular for both Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin first started getting a lot of mainstream attention near the end of 2013. At that time, BTCs price was skyrocketing, and even hit a peak of $1,200 in early 2014. Unfortunately, that peak was created by the nefarious Willy Bot artificially pushing up the price. Eventually, that manipulation caused a major Bitcoin price decline throughout most of 2014 and early 2015.

Earlier in the year 2017, we witnessed the second wave of cryptocurrency. With Bitcoin hitting an all time high of just over US$3,000 and Ethereum surpassing the $400 mark in quick succession, there wasa lot of positive momentum. However, bullish markets never last forever.Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are going through a bearish period right now. Despite this, Bitcoin price still hovers around $2,450 and Ethereum is trading above $250.

Without the historical market context of these previous two waves, things look very different. All major cryptocurrencies are in the red, and it looks like the market will continue this bearish trend for quite some time to come. In fact, there is only one currency in the top 50 which has not lost value over the past 24 hours. Looking at the top 100 currencies, only 7 have not lost value.

It is important to keep in mind cryptocurrency investing is not ashort-term gains these days. Instead, one always has to look at the bigger picture. Bitcoin has been one of the worlds best-performing assets since 2012. It has seen many setbacks but always comes back much stronger. As traders like to say, we are setting higher lows all the time, which indicates a future uptrend is around the corner. When that corner will come within our grasp is anybodys guess.

In fact, these temporary setbacks are not reducing the optimism among Bitcoin price speculators by any means. Bobby Lee, the CEO of BTCC, stated how Bitcoin can be worth between $5,000 and $11,000 by 2020. Granted, that is quite a wide price gap, but it would indicate the Bitcoin price will at least double in the next three years. There will be another Bitcoin block reward halving in 2020, which means less new coins will enter the ecosystem every day. It also gives Bitcoin three more years to mature and gain more mainstream traction.

Fred Wilson, the managing partner and co-founder of Union Square Ventures, feels Ethereums market cap will ultimately grow larger than Bitcoins. That is a boldstatement, especially when considering Bitcoins market cap may very well double, triple, or even quadruple by 2020 if Bobby Lee is correct. However, it is unclear how many Ether was in circulation at that time, as Ethereum has no fixed supply cap, unlike Bitcoin. Assuming there is 100 billion ETH in circulation at that time, it would put the value of one Ether at the US$850 mark. This is a very optimistic outlook, andone speculators would certainly appreciate.

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Will Cryptocurrency See a Third Wave? - The Merkle