Bitcoin Investor chooses 4 trends for digital assets

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Bitcoin is going through another year of immense growth as it receives more widespread adoption. Alyse Killeen, founder of bitcoin VC Stillmark, said it will become more usable for transactions. Stillmark’s managing partner told Insider about his top bitcoin predictions for the next five years.

Bitcoin has never been so popular and for good reason. The cryptocurrency started in 2021 at around $ 29,000, climbed to over $ 63,000 in April and is now valued at just over 50,000, according to figures from Coinbase.

These rising values ​​and the resulting investor interest is good news for Alyse Killeen, founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Stillmark, which specializes in supporting crypto-related startups.

Killeen has been supporting bitcoin companies since 2013 before opening his own venture capital firm two and a half years ago. She sits on the boards of companies such as crypto storage company Casa and infrastructure company Bitcoin Blockstream.

One of the main differences between supporting these companies today compared to five years ago is the emergence of the Lightning Network, Killeen said.

The Lightning network acts as a second layer on top of the bitcoin network which speeds up micropayments between users. He hopes to alleviate one of the main flaws of cryptocurrency as a form of transactional bidding by making it easier to transfer money.

“In 2014 and early 2015, a lot of venture capital money was invested in payment companies in the bitcoin space,” she said. “But the technology wasn’t ready for it, so Bitcoin’s base protocol throughput didn’t match and its short-term potential didn’t match the metrics these payment companies needed to achieve to deliver on their promises. made to those who supported them. “

While the arrival of the Lightning Network promises a lot for the future growth of bitcoin, the digital asset also faces the prospect of regulation.

Still, Killeen remains optimistic about the future of crypto and has made four predictions for the next five years.

“Right now, most people have access to bitcoin by purchase. In three or four years, most people will have access to bitcoin by earning,” Killeen said.

One example: She predicts that bitcoin microtransactions will become a common way to pay creators.

Today, new crypto companies often tend to be funded with crypto coins. But more traditional VCs, led by industry giant Andreessen Horowitz, are starting to get involved. Killeen predicts “that there will be a greater influx of venture capital into space.”

As traditional capital takes hold, Killeen believes that many “really flashy” projects and startups that don’t rely on solid technology will also start to decline.

“Historically, volatility has decreased over time as adoption has increased,” she said. As more and more people use bitcoin, she says that over the next five years, “bitcoin’s volatility will start to decrease.”

“You will start to see bitcoin adopted at the enterprise level,” she said. It will become a more common form of payment between businesses.

“Most people will start using Bitcoin without even knowing they’re using Bitcoin because it happens in the back end, when they make, you know, a payment on Grubhub, for example,” she said. .

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