US: In December 2017, the value of bitcoin surged high to an extent that investing in Cryptocurrency had become a viable option for the investors.
In December 2017, bitcoin’s price had hit its all-time high of $19,535.70, before suffering a sharp decline. On January 6, it recovered slightly and the value was $17,035.60. Later, there was free fall in the value of bitcoin.
However, Kenneth Rogoff, an economist and also Harvard University professor warned that bitcoin’s price could plunge to as low as $100 in just 10 years.
According to the news reported in ibtimes, Kenneth said that the bitcoin’s price is more likely to fall to $100 than to hit the $100,000 mark in a decade and also added that cryptocurrency would end up being just “a tiny fraction of what it is now if we’re headed out 10 years from now.”
Kenneth Rogoff is also a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and he says that “Basically, if you take away the possibility of money laundering and tax evasion, its actual uses as a transaction vehicle are very small.”
The recent drop in bitcoin prices had been attributed to government regulation but a global framework to regulate cryptocurrencies would take some time to be developed.
Rogoff said that “It really needs to be global regulation. Even if the U.S. cracks down on it and China cracks down, but Japan doesn’t, people will be able to still launder money through Japan.”
Arun Jaitley, the Union Finance Minister, also said that cryptocurrency would not be recognised as a legal tender by the government.
James Faucette, analyst of Morgan Stanley says in a research note in which he referred to dwindling list of online retailers who accept bitcoin “If nobody accepts the technology for payment, then the value would be zero.”