Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper has predicted that OpenNode, a multi-layered, Lightning Network (LN)-enabled Bitcoin (BTC) payment processing platform, will be widely adopted in the foreseeable future.
Draper, an electrical engineering graduate from Stanford University, believes the Bitcoin network will be able to compete with more established payment gateways, including those established by the VISA network.
When questioned about whether people are more focused on developing products during the bear market (in a recent interview conducted by CryptoWendy), Draper confirmed that many companies have been building various crypto-related solutions in order to make it easier “to move Bitcoin around.”
Commenting on when mass adoption of cryptocurrencies will occur, Draper said a lot of people are already using them right now. However, he explained Bitcoin’s market value has not yet been established which is why the pseudonymous cryptocurrency’s price has been fluctuating quite a lot.
Responding to a question about whether he thinks altcoins make good investments, Draper noted that “the ones that are going to be around for a long time, [they’re already] rising to the top” (in terms of market capitalization. He added that this is something ”we’re seeing right now and there are some [altcoins] out there that are still going through the process of being developed. They’re going to have a big impact on the world’s [economy.]”
It’s Important To Know The People Behind Cryptocurrency Projects
He continued:
A lot of success in crypto … if you want to put your money to work … [we should look at] who’s behind the [various] cryptocurrencies. If we do that, we’ll be holding on to the right currency when the time comes.
Commenting on the business model adopted by crypto entrepreneurs, Draper confirmed most of the digital asset and blockchain companies were startups. He acknowledged the Bitcoin and the Ethereum (ETH) networks are established platforms, however the majority of crypto projects are still in their early stages of development.
Tezos And Bancor Were “Huge Offerings”
Going on to mention that when his firm, Draper Associates, supported the launch of Tezos (XTZ) and Bancor (BNT), those were “huge offerings.”
He went on to point out that the “great entrepreneurs of the world are those that rise to the occasion. When the chips are down, they continue to” stay focused and work on their projects.
While comparing Bitcoin to the rest of altcoins, Draper remarked that “gold is so gone.” He noted:
What would you use gold for when you can store value with Bitcoin? It’s complete nonsense. But I’m sure a lot of people still use it and they think of the gold standard as like the good coin. But I look at it, and I say, you’re comparing Bitcoin to gold?
According to Draper’s assessment, people will eventually begin spending their Bitcoin holdings when its fair value has been established. He also confirmed that he’s sticking to his $250,000 Bitcoin price prediction by 2022-2023 and that this is not unrealistic as the world’s most dominant cryptocurrency would still only account for 5% of the world’s GDP at this price.
