2024 Crypto Market Forecasts: Here’s What Could Happen

We’re only a month into 2024 and crypto is already going crazy. The spot Bitcoin ETF approvals were just the beginning - there’s plenty more still to come.

When trying to evaluate which way the market is likely to move over the next few months, it’s vital to consider all the factors, both macro and crypto-specific, that could come into play. Helpfully, the good folks at CoinShares, the crypto investment and research firm, have done just that in their latest report.

The CoinShares researchers have looked at everything from Bitcoin and its wider ecosystem, to Ethereum, Solana, the legal issues facing the industry, NFTs and much more besides. It’s an in-depth and exhaustive look at almost everything that’s relevant to crypto in 2024 and beyond.

But, rather than wade through CoinShares’s report yourself, why not allow us to do the heavy lifting and serve you up all the most relevant parts? That’s exactly what you’ll find in today’s video. It contains everything you need to know about what to expect from the year ahead. 2024 promises to be a wild ride - here’s how you can be sure to hold on tight.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

The most important thing for investors is certainty. Once there’s certainty about some catalyst that’s going to happen in the future, it not only makes it possible for investors to price it in, but also to price in what happens after that catalyst has passed. As far as we can tell, this is exactly what’s happened with the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury over the last week.

In case you missed the news, the Treasury announced how much debt it would be issuing to fund the US government’s spending, and with which durations. It seems that the markets took this news quite well. On the flipside, Fed chairman Jerome Powell made it clear that rate cuts aren’t coming just yet, but it seems that the markets quickly shrugged this news off.

This begs the question of what it all means for crypto. The answer is that the clarity around these macro factors could put crypto-specific factors back in the driver’s seat. With the sell pressure from Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF behind us, it’s likely that new inflows into the spot Bitcoin ETFs will continue to be positive, like they were over the last week.

At the same time, it appears that investors are turning their focus to ETH. That’s because ETH options trading volumes have been hitting all-time highs, despite ETH’s price staying static. For context, options are believed to be used primarily by sophisticated investors. Logically then, this suggests that the smart money is starting to turn its focus to ETH.

This makes perfect sense given that Ethereum is preparing for its Dencun upgrade. In case you missed the memo, the final Dencun testnet is expected to occur this Wednesday, the 7th February. Assuming all goes smoothly, then Dencun will launch on mainnet the next day. This will be bullish for ETH and even more bullish for its layer 2s. We’ll be doing a deep dive into Dencun soon, so stay tuned for that.

Now, as bullish as this is, it’s important to remember that there are some bearish crypto catalysts out there too. Two of these are the SEC’s ongoing lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, the latter of which the judge could throw out. The fact that Coinbase recently hired another lawyer suggests that the judge may not throw out the case like many expect.

Meanwhile, pro-crypto politicians in the US have started waking up to the fact that the rules proposed by the so called Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the autumn of last year could create problems for crypto. For reference, the CFPB was created by anti-crypto politician Elizabeth Warren, so it makes sense that it would institute anti-crypto policies.

You can learn more about what the CFPB proposed in our video from back then.

It’s not just the CFPB either. The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) which consists of the Treasury, the Fed, and other regulators, is reportedly considering designating entities in the crypto industry as systemically important. The elephant in the room is stablecoin issuers, which FSOC could designate as systemically important to effectively take control of them.

Thankfully, there’s no evidence that FSOC plans on doing this anytime soon, but it nonetheless underscores the fact that the crypto market could be in for a volatile week in both directions. As a cherry on top, El Salvador’s elections begin today. It looks like pro-Bitcoin president Nayib Bukele will win again. News around his re-election could boost the crypto markets.

There’s also Chinese new year on the 10th February, but that’s a story for next week’s newsletter!

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📲 Farcaster & Frames 📲

This week, Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan’s “sufficiently” decentralised social network Farcaster experienced a significant uptick in daily active users, or people building on top of the Farcaster protocol.

This sudden uptick seems to have come from the growing hype surrounding the project’s latest feature update called ‘Frames.’

Before we dive into Frames, if this is the first time you’re hearing of Farcaster, then the easiest way to describe the project would be to label it as a decentralised version of Twitter. Similar to how posts on Twitter are called ‘tweets’, posts on Farcaster are called ‘casts.’

The technical nuances of the project obviously run deep, but for the purposes of this read, this level of understanding is sufficient.

Coming back to Frames, as stated before, the feature update has given Farcaster’s popularity a big boost, with the number of daily active users, casts and reactions seeing a notable uptick.

A look at the data from Pixelhack’s Dune Dashboard reveals that the number of unique users reacting to casts on the social platform has increased by 5x, while the number of users casting has increased by 4x from the previous week.

So, what does Frames do and why are people going crazy over it?

Well, to put it simply Frames allows Farcaster users to embed web pages within their casts.

That said, some of the more technical among you might be tempted to understand Frames as being similar to the ‘HTML iFrames’ tag, which allows social media platforms and web pages to embed other web pages within them.

However, Farcaster’s Frames extends Facebook’s OpenGraph standard to turn static embeds into interactive experiences. In essence, this transforms each cast using Frames into an interactive mini-app within the Farcaster client.

Christian Montoyo's recent Medium article does a great job breaking down the technical nuances. We recommend you give it a read.

As Christian explains, the advantage of Frames’ OpenGraph standard is simple: it allows users to interact with embedded links natively within the social media platform, as opposed to the current practice of being redirected to an external webpage.

For context, imagine if you could play random games, listen to music, and make online purchases, all without leaving your Twitter feed. This is what Frames does for Farcaster.

This fundamentally elevates the experience provided to Farcaster users when compared to the one provided by other existing social media platforms. But most importantly, this breaks the window of possibility wide open when it comes to the functionality of casts being published on Farcaster.

For example, over the past week, we saw users publishing a wide variety of Frames, such as the Polls Frame (lets users vote on a poll with up to 4 options); the Paragraph Frame (lets users subscribe to a Paragraph newsletter with one click, without leaving the feed); the Random Chublins Frame (lets users load a random Chublin from the Chublins NFT collection); the Nethria Frame (embeds the Nethria text adventure game); the NFT Mint Frame (lets users mint a gasless NFT drop) and even the notorious Doom Frame (lets users play Doom from their Farcaster Feed).

We should let you know that you need to create a Farcaster account to view any of the Frames hyperlinked within this article. Also, we recommend you check out Zach Terrell’s insightful Spindl dashboard, which curates data pertaining to metrics surrounding Farcaster’s Frames.

Coming back to the variety of Frames, someone even managed to cast a Frame that allowed users to purchase a box of cookies with crypto (powered by Coinbase Commerce) right from the homepage of their Farcaster client. While the experience isn’t one-click yet, Packy McCormick, the founder of the ‘Not Boring’ newsletter, describes it as being “really smooth” in his write-up of the project.

McCormick seems especially bullish about the future of Farcaster due to the functional unlock presented by its Frames feature. He believes it fundamentally fixes one of Web3’s biggest problems: user experience.

He also cites Variant Capital Partner Jesse Walden’s observation about Frames unlocking a new go-to-market strategy for founders. Especially about how they now have the ability to tap directly into existing user attention, engagement, identity and data as they plan their GTM, “the same way that Zynga famously did with Facebook”.

Overall, everyone seems to believe this is the beginning of a larger domino effect that could see the eventual downfall of centralised social platforms like Twitter. We just have to wait and watch.

🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

* Dencun Upgrade: Big things for Ethereum?
* Fed Press Conference: What’s in store for crypto?
* MCBDC: Terrifying new CBDC system?
* Global Wealth Report: Everything you need to know about the rich!

🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* How to Buy Solana 2024: Complete Guide!
* The Proven Marketing Playbook for Crypto Ecosystem Growth
* ICONOMI Review 2024: TradFi Ease Meets Crypto!
* How to Buy Bitcoin in Europe 2024: Complete Guide!
* M6 Labs: Tis The Season of Giving & Airdrops

Press Releases

* Open Campus, ForbesWeb3, and Animoca Brands Launch OC100, the Definitive List of Creators Driving Learning and Growth Within Web3

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

As the crypto markets have been heating up, so has people’s greed. Greed that clouds judgement and allows the unwary to fall for some of the most basic scams. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, then it almost certainly is.

“A fool and his money are soon parted” - Thomas Tusser

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.