What does 2022 hold for cryptos?

After the wild ride that was 2021, many people are wondering what 2022 will look like in the cryptocurrency world. 

Greg Rubin, head of trading at Global Prime, said 2022 was shaping up to be an extremely volatile year for cryptos.

His expectation is for the bull run that started in 2020 to come to an end this year. 

“I still believe it is likely to see one more big push higher before the bear market sets in, and therefore, we could witness a very large range for prices next year,” he stated.

When it comes to Bitcoin, Rubin said in the wake of its recent weakness, quite a few had already written it off, calling the highs struck in the US$69k region as the top in this cycle. 

“Personally, I believe this is premature and for as long as we can hold above the US$13,880 level, I fully expect to see one more push higher to complete the move,” he said.

“Bitcoin almost always ends its bull run with a blow-off top, which makes predicting exact levels very difficult.”

Rubin added that standard targets were in the “$114,000/$130,000 region”.

“However should my prediction come to fruition and we witness another blow-off top, it is certainly possible to exceed these levels.” 

Rubin went on to say that Ether had been growing stronger than Bitcoin recently and, with the ETH/BTC chart having recently broken out, his expectation was for Ether to lead on what he expected to be the “final leg higher before ultimately dropping further than Bitcoin once the highs have been struck”. 

In December 2021, The ETH/BTC exchange rate jumped a little over 11.50% to hit 0.0835 BTC for the first time since May 2018. The pair’s price rally appeared in contrast to Ether’s 15% price drop against the U.S. dollar on Dec. 4, which appeared in the wake of a market-wide selloff that saw Bitcoin plunging by as much as 21% intraday.

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“Ideal targets for Ether come in around the US$11k region with the lower bound being US$10k and possible extensions could propel Ether even as high as US$20k,” Rubin said.

Meme coins 

Rubin further believes meme coins would cause a lot of pain for retail traders in 2022.

“The problem arises in the fact that if one is buying such coins without a plan, they will more likely be left holding the bag when it does top out, irrespective of how high the coin reaches,” he said.

“The likelihood is all the meme coins will eventually end up worthless.” 

A lot of newer members to the meme-coin space get drawn in by returns previously seen by meme coins such as Doge (DOGE-USD) and Shiba (SHIB-USD). 

The lure of ‘get rich quick’ sucks the young and uninformed in, resulting in a lot of retail money flowing into these coins.

Rubin said the typical cycle of meme coins showed when they did start to move, there was always a lot of hype around them.

“As the price starts to move higher, more and more people keep raising their predictions and the greed kicks in,” he said.

“Ultimately, they top out, with a lot of retail traders being left to hold the bag and not only giving up big gains but losing their investment at the same time”.

Rubin’s advice for those wanting to dip their toes into meme coins is “to have a strict plan and not get caught up in all the hype”. 

“From my side, I see no reason to trade coins which are purely driven by hype when there are so many great coins to trade.

Dan Edleback, CEO of Exidio believes that once the hype in meme coins dies down, only the serious investors in crypto will be left. 

“[This] will be a year where some of the people that have come to crypto solely for a quick buck will dissipate,” Edleback said.

“We will be left with the builders and true innovative protocols. Those that do not have any real tech or adoption will begin to become more apparent – even if the market prices won’t reflect that immediately.” 

Edleback sees 2021 and 2022 as inflection years where many of the world’s top technologists are shifting their career focus to developments in Web3.

“Tech giants like Meta (Facebook), gaming studios, and even global brands will continue to adopt the technology,” he said.

“We will see a multichain world – Solana, Avalanche, Cosmos, Ethereum, Near will continue to flourish.”

Edleback believes we will likely see less hype and fewer fireworks from a price perspective.

“When the FOMO begins to sail, the tech developers will be riding the build ship.”

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