A new report from Juniper Research has forecast that the value of cryptocurrency transactions will break the $1 trillion milestone before the end of 2017. This would mean a growth 15 times larger than the previous year.

Juniper’s Future of Blockchain research states that the first half of 2017 brought in more than $325bn in cryptocurrency transactions due to the rapid increase in the price of Ethereum, which accounts for two-thirds of such transactions.

Since the beginning of the year Bitcoin value has increased from $1000 to $4000. Juniper Research has also forecast that digital payments will exceed the $5 trn mark by 2020. However, a planned fork in November, when a scaling solution will be implemented, may lead to a split in the cryptocurrency community and a depreciation of Bitcoin. The research also gives its take on new use cases for blockchain. The report claims that deployments of private blockchain technologies for permissioned ledgers have much better prospects than the public chains running cryptocurrencies.

The report praises Mastercard’s move of partnering with third-party wallet providers like Apple and Samsung and developing its own API-based digital wallet. It also complements Visa for implementing a one-click login process to ease online payments and increase both customer conversion rates and online spending totals. 

“There is no resolution in sight to the continuing and fundamental disagreements between many Bitcoin miners and Bitcoin Core developers over the future of the cryptocurrency,” warns the research author Dr. Windsor Holden. “This in turn could lead to uncertainty about Bitcoin’s future and downward pressure on its valuation.”

Holden is also quoted as saying, “To succeed in an increasingly competitive environment, it will be essential for payment service providers to provide merchants with an array of flexible, localized solutions with transparent pricing structures.”