I have been writing about waves potential for a long time but now it deserves its own speculation thread because I don't want to be hijacking the main thread.
There are several pros and cons with waves and I will list them all here and if you want to know specifics then just quote one bullet point and I will explain more about that and how it should be included in the final valuation of $Waves:
Pros:
1. 1000tx/s or more
2. Dex with btc and fiat gateways
3. Fixed supply (100 million)
4. Mass token transfer & message inclusion
5. Pywaves index site (lots of hidden value here)
6. Implentation of waves specific price tracking site (like cmc but waves tokens only)
7. Smart contract
Cons:
1. Ticker removal for tokens from june 15 (will be counteracted by community token voting soon) *postponed until december*
2. US client restrictions
3. 50% of supply in top 5 wallets
4. under developed dex UI (lots of hidden value extraction here)
5. Lack of fortune 500 onramping (vostok will take this role)
6. No small cap token tabs in dex/no token scroll function on dex such as volume/market cap browsing (needs manual input to find tokens in search field)
With this summary I will now continue to argue for a potential price development of this brand medium and long term and let's begin with a simplistic upper and lower price boundary based on historical development in log scale:
The price is following a pattern similar to the 2017 runup but at x10 multiple like $1.9 instead of $0.19 etc. We are now in an intermediate phase before a parabolic rise to $68 which I estimate will take place before end of August of this year. It seems the upper bound in this parabola is located at $125 which would value Waves at 12,5 billion dollars and this can be justified if certain criteria from the team development roadmap and suggestions are implemented. As such, there is no mystery with Waves price development as the value is already proven but for now remains largely hidden due to lack of mainstream UI development. All of these technically light weight improvements will easily push towards the $125 price and I believe that the movement will be like this:
IF this is bottom as I have argued in main thread, here at $1.9 as we saw a few days ago, then it should quickly impulse towards $4 from here and then basically move unhindered towards ath and $68 within a few months after which it will retrace to $18-22. Once the top is reached at $125 there is a more significant correction back to mid 30's depending on where we are in the greater bear/bull market by this time next year. Good scenario suggests retracement back to $80 level and bad is mid $30's.
On a longer time scale, a few years or more, Waves price potential is similar to Ethereums 2017 runup at $1800-2200 equivalent because these coins share a lot of commonalities in supply and tech. This scenario is largely dependent on global sentiments and the teams ability to remain competitive with smart contract implementation and onramping, but there are many other factors that must be perfected before $2000 can become a reality.
However, $70-125 is in play right now, and that is the reason for this thread, to lend a perspective to those of you that are too short sighted right now and counting pennies. It is time to expand the horizon for what is possible here.
In this intermediate phase I believe that Waves can attain a hybrid status like a small business market place and decentralized messaging platform, most importantly censorproof. This is then similar to ebay and twitter and should be reflected in their respective market caps (if successful) somewhere at $300 equivalent ($30 billion). By success I am referring to user acquisition and this in turn is reliant on UI improvements to attract mainstream users because waves is the most user friendly token issuance platform compared to Counterparty and Ethereum.
Finally, I believe that the marketing & branding function of waves with mass transfer protocol and message inclusion is heavily discounted compared to for example wall street journal cost per mille (CPM) as a small business owner can reach thousands of rich list and highly targeted users on this platform at a fraction (1/100 or less) of the cost of regular cmp of this caliber. This is an undiscovered market discrepancy which is a big factor in the $70-125 push. The reason that this value descrepancy is not accounted for is because this is high tech and marketers and small business owners of the old school are unable to fully understand the concepts at play here. But they will learn soon, there is only a slight delay.