Institutional investors – excited by greater regulatory clarity – are going to drive “considerable expansion” of the cryptocurrency market in 2019.

This is the bold forecast by the CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations.

Nigel Green, founder and chief executive of deVere Group, which launched deVere Crypto, is speaking as the post-holiday crypto rally continues.

Over the last 48 hours, the three biggest digital currencies Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP have climbed 4%, 12%, and 3%, respectively.

Green commented, “The bearish sentiment of the last quarter of 2018 is now, I believe, behind us. We can expect the current upswing to continue, albeit with peaks and troughs as in any financial market.”

He continued, “In 2019, the cryptocurrency market is set to radically evolve. We can expect considerable expansion of the sector largely due to inflows of institutional investors.

“Major corporations, financial institutions, governments and their agencies, prestigious universities, and household-name investing legends are all going to bring their institutional capital and institutional expertise to the crypto market.

“The direction of travel has already been on this path, but there is a growing sense that institutional investors are preparing to move off the side lines in 2019.”

Green added, “The acceleration of institutional investment is likely to be driven by greater regulatory clarity. More and more global jurisdictions can be expected to join the likes of Malta, Hong Kong, Japan and Switzerland in becoming crypto-friendly from a regulatory and pro-business viewpoint.”

Whilst Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, will remain dominant this year, Ethereum and XRP, due to their unique characteristics and problem-solving traits, can be expected to significantly fuel the 2019 upswing, affirmed the deVere CEO.

He noted, “The smart contract abilities of Ethereum are already unrivalled. More and more institutional investors will be making use of these capabilities this year. Also, once Ethereum can accept outside data in its smart contract protocols, its price will rocket further.

“When it comes to XRP, hundreds of financial institutions across the world are already working with it and this is a trend that is set to continue and grow in 2019.”

“In addition, XRP has been positioning itself to become a leading international facilitator of global remittances and inflows. This is a massive market in the expanding emerging economies.”

Nigel Green concluded with, “2019 will be a year of accelerated maturation for the crypto sector due to institutional investment.”