- Brad Garlinghouse projects the cryptocurrency market doubling its value this year to over $5 trillion.
- The optimism of the Ripple CEO stems from the pivotal events happening in the sector, mainly the Bitcoin (BTC) halving and the success of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US.
- A positive regulatory shift in the US is also expected to catalyze growth in the industry.
Ripple CEO’s Optimism in the Crypto Market
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has high hopes that the cryptocurrency market will elevate itself into uncharted territories this year. The new level of scarcity triggered by the Bitcoin halving and the continued success of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US are seen as the key catalysts for the potential rise of the industry into a $5 trillion venture.
Garlinghouse emphasized in a CNBC interview that he’s been in the crypto industry for a long time. So by now, he has seen the trends come and go. This time though, he is “very optimistic” because of “the macro trends,” including how ETFs are directing “real institutional money” into the crypto space.
“You’re seeing that drives demand, and at the same time demand is increasing, supply is decreasing,” the Ripple boss explained. “That doesn’t take an economics major to tell you what happens when supply contracts and demand expands.”
Given these factors, Garlinghouse confidently projected that the crypto market could easily double before the current year ends. By the time of his interview a couple of days ago, the numbers were at $2.6 trillion, so that would mean $5.2 trillion in the next few months.
As of this writing, the global cryptocurrency market cap is $2.74 trillion. The numbers are notably higher than the overall valuation of the world’s third and fourth largest tradable assets, namely Apple ($2.62 trillion) and NVIDIA ($2.2 trillion). Bitcoin accounts for around half of the cryptocurrency’s total value as it trades at $69,700 as of this writing at 6:30 AM UTC.
Brad Garlinghouse Hopes for a Change in Admin After the 2024 US Presidential Election
Another key event that Garlinghouse is on the lookout for is the upcoming US Presidential Election. He hopes that a change in administration could pave the way for a positive regulatory evolution in the digital assets sector. This comes amid the ongoing struggles of Ripple in the current administration as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been bombarding the company and its present leadership with lawsuits due to its alleged sales of unlicensed securities.
“The US is still the largest economy in the world, and it’s unfortunately been one of the more hostile crypto markets,” said Garlinghouse. “And I think that’s going to start to change, also.”