Vitalik Buterin, Justin Sun, Changpeng Zhao Weigh In on Crypto Growth Prospects

As the market value of altcoins and Ethereum (ETH), in particular, took another dive, several of the most prominent crypto venture founders shared their expectations for future price movements. The bear market is getting more protracted, and the fall season has not yet caused a broader upswing, so the hard talk of where crypto prices are going gathered momentum. Vitalik Buterin, Justin Sun, and Changpeng Zhao offered a glimpse into their mood through a series of Twitter posts.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin kicked off the discussion by stating he did not see any room for a repeat of the 1,000-fold growth seen in the crypto space heyday:

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1039697887054053376

His view is based on the fact that most crypto assets have already delivered significant price growth, and such staggering increases are unlikely for established coins. The 1,000-fold growth was, for a while, easily achieved by initial coin offering (ICO) projects, which went on to trade at much higher prices. However, newly launched assets have failed to repeat those feats.

ETH itself started trading below $2 in 2015 and peaked at $1,417.38 on January 10, 2018. Given that the asset also fell below $1 on occasion, some investors have indeed achieved a 1,000-fold return on investment (ROI).

ETH’s decline accelerated on Wednesday (September 12), its price standing at $172.33 as of 7:30 UTC. In the past 24 hours, it abandoned the range above $190, dashing hopes of easily regaining $200 levels.

In the same Twitter thread, TRON founder and CEO Justin Sun expressed optimism that global wealth would indeed be held in crypto assets.

https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1039721322841088002

Another optimist is Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance. He believes the size of the crypto market is relatively modest, and there is significant room for growth to reach the scale of traditional financial markets:

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1039709630329319424

Right now, the market capitalization of all crypto assets has dropped to just under $188 billion, a comparatively small number. The crypto market capitalization peaked at above $542 billion before reversing direction and shedding most of the gains.

This market relies heavily on sentiment, and some have accused Buterin of abusing the influence of his statements, in effect crashing the price of the crypto project he founded.

The crypto market is also suffering from a lack of direct retail and institutional investments, and some of the trading volumes are only happening between pairs of crypto assets or by dollar-like positions in fixed-price crypto tokens. This poses a problem as there seems to be no significant transfer of wealth into the crypto market.