2018 Will Determine Bitcoin’s Long-Term Role, Says Early Facebook Investor McNamee

Early Facebook Investor Roger McNamee says how Bitcoin fairs in 2018 will determine its long-term legitimacy in the larger financial market.

Roger McNamee, an American venture capitalist and early investor in Facebook, predicted that 2018 will be a make or break year for Bitcoin (BTC) in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.

The tech investor believes Bitcoin’s notable rise in value this year is due mostly to speculation but points out that the coin’s potential legitimacy depends on its endurance in the coming year:

"[Bitcoin] is still a very small market in the context of the larger financial world, but it has had a huge year and we've done it around a speculative mania. The thing that people forget is that if a mania goes on long enough, it becomes self-fulfilling. So that even after the crash that follows, there is a real industry.”

According to McNamee, the Bitcoin market’s current performance - with a market cap of $246 bln and a 24 hr trading volume of  $12 bln at press time - shows that it has the potential to attract more big money, which could eventually make it an established part of the global financial market:

“With the level of activity going on...there are people that are willing to invest the kind of dollars it takes to make a thing like Bitcoin into a long-term part of the financial market...The big thing about 2018 is that I think we’re going to find out one way or the other.”

Exactly a week ago, Bitcoin, along with the entire crypto market, suffered a severe dip, with BTC alone dropping almost 30 percent. The market quickly recovered, but the past week has been marked by a volatility that is not particularly new to the market.

According to McNamee, there is only more volatility to come next year, but how it “settles out” will determine Bitcoin’s durability long-term:

"You'll have these big swings, up and presumably down, as well. And, you know, wherever that settles out I think will tell us a lot about the role of Bitcoin long-term. I don't think it will be the end of the story either way."

In other predictions for the New Year, well-known stock analyst Ronnie Moas thinks Bitcoin could hit a $28,000 high in 2018. Like McNamee, Dr. Julian Hosp, the co-founder of TenX, sees more extreme volatility for the coin, saying the price could reach as high as $60,000 or as low as $5,000 in the coming year.