The Rise of Virtual Assets: 2024 Outlook and Trends

Bitcoin, Ethereum

The year 2023, which went from the peak of the bear market to the rise market, has ended and the new year of 2024 has begun. Bitcoin, an asset representing the virtual asset market, formed a market price around $16,600 in January 2023, but ended the year at $42,300, up about 155% in December 2023. This means that the virtual asset market, which entered a full-fledged decline in 2022 due to the Terra crisis and the FTX crisis, ended a long recession and succeeded in taking a leap forward. Now, participants in the virtual asset market are showing interest in whether the upward trend will be maintained in 2023 and whether they will be able to experience a full-fledged upward trend in 2024. In this regard, experts believe there are three main things to pay attention to in 2024.


First is the trend of new capital inflows since the approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs. Although the SEC has not yet approved the Bitcoin Spot ETF, virtual asset and ETF experts now believe it will be approved sometime in January. The most prevalent view right now is that the SEC will approve this ETF before the approval deadline for Bitcoin spot ETFs applied by asset managers approaches on January 10th. Of course, the SEC may once again postpone or reject the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF, but approval is very likely as it is showing signs of implementation as SEC officials have dramatically increased the number of meetings with asset managers who have applied for this ETF and asset managers are also actively complying with the SEC's requirements.

If so, when the Bitcoin spot ETF is approved this year, the important thing will eventually be how much new funds flow in after the ETF is approved. In response to this, experts predicted that a large amount of new funds would flow in after the Bitcoin spot ETF was approved, comparing the trends in the past when ETFs of other assets were first launched. In fact, CryptoQuant, a virtual asset analysis company, said in a report published last year, "If Bitcoin Spot ETF is approved, a large amount of new funds will come in and the virtual asset market capitalization will increase significantly.” This is because Bitcoin Spot ETF has the potential to attract institutional investors who could only invest in the institutional sector, as well as individual investors in traditional markets who had difficulty investing in virtual assets.

we need to see how much Web3 specific area develops this year. Web3's unique area refers to a field that incorporates blockchain's cross-border, transparency, and decentralization. DeFi is one of the representative Web3's unique domains. Experts believe that if the virtual asset market enters the market this year, the trading volume of the entire DeFi ecosystem may far exceed that of a single super-large centralized exchange. This is because DeFi does not have any border restrictions and can realize automation of compensation for participants using blockchain through Web3 Token Economics. However, it should be noted that regulations on DeFi have not been clearly established yet.

• Previously, the regulation of centralized exchanges was actively promoted by major countries around the world due to the FTX incident. Also, this year, it is expected that it will be important to watch how smoothly the process of taking advantage of the advantages of traditional technology, such as transaction speed and low commission costs, while maintaining the characteristics of blockchain like Layer 2, is carried out. In fact, Ethereum is working to dramatically reduce fees through the Dencun upgrade early this year. We hope that in the new year of 2024, all of these factors will work positively so that the virtual asset market can soar once again.