The Blubber

The CEO of blockchain startup Ripple predicts that the cryptocurrency market's combined market capitalization will exceed $5 trillion this year.

Brad Garlinghouse of Ripple told CNBC that he anticipates the entire crypto market's value to double, citing macro factors such as the launch of the first U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and the upcoming bitcoin "halving."

"I've been in this industry for a long time, and I've seen these trends come and go," Garlinghouse said. "I'm very optimistic. I think the macro trends, the big-picture things like the ETFs, are driving real institutional money for the first time."

"When supply contracts and demand expands, it doesn't take an economics major to tell you what happens," he added.

The first U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs were approved on Jan. 10 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These ETFs trade on U.S. stock exchanges and allow institutions and retail investors to gain exposure to bitcoin without directly owning the underlying asset.

The bitcoin halving is a technical event that occurs roughly every four years in bitcoin's history. It halves the total mining reward to bitcoin miners, who are volunteers on the bitcoin network that use high-powered computers to verify transactions and create new tokens.

Garlinghouse mentioned that the last halving event took place in 2020, and the next one is scheduled for later this month.

"The overall market cap of the crypto industry... is easily predicted to double by the end of this year... [as it's] impacted by all of these macro factors," Garlinghouse stated.

As of April 4, the total crypto market capitalization was approximately $2.6 trillion. Doubling the market would suggest a new total crypto market cap of $5.2 trillion.

Bitcoin has surged over 140% in the last 12 months, reaching a record high above $73,000 on March 13, according to CoinGecko data. However, it has since fallen below the $70,000 level.