•Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, said on CNBC on Thursday that the price of Bitcoin (BTC), the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, could reach $1,500,000 by 2030 in a bullish scenario. , raising its estimate by 50% from the previous forecast of $1 million.
•"We believe the upside potential has increased with the SEC approval. This is a green light," Wood said on CNBC.
•On Wednesday, Bitcoin ETFs were finally approved in the US after a decade of trying. The Securities and Exchange Commission gave the green light on Wednesday to major filings from markets seeking to list leading products.
•Cathay also confirmed that a bear case would see the price rise to $258,500 and a base case of $682,800.
•Ark Invest is among the asset managers approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer bitcoin ETFs, which began trading on Thursday. On Thursday, Bitcoin briefly surpassed $49,000 for the first time since December 2021. However, it has given up all of its previous gains and is now trading near $46,000.
•Cathy is not the only one who expects a huge jump in Bitcoin prices. Standard Chartered Bank recently predicted that the price of Bitcoin could rise to levels closer to $200,000 by the end of 2025, comparing the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to the first gold-backed fund in the United States, which was launched in November 2004. After this launch, the The price of gold more than 4 times over the next 7 years.
•Meanwhile, US-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds saw $4.6 billion worth of shares traded as of Thursday afternoon, as investors began trading in funds approved by the US Securities Commission on Wednesday.
•The products represent a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry that will test whether the digital asset — still viewed as risky by many professionals — can gain broader acceptance as an investment.
•Eleven bitcoin ETFs — including BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (NYSE:BLK), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, among others — have begun trading, creating fierce competition for market share.
•"Trading volumes have been relatively strong for new ETF products. But this is a longer race than just one day's trading," said Todd Rosenbluth, strategist at VettaFi.
•Some executives have described bitcoin as a high-risk investment, and Vanguard, the largest mutual fund provider, said it has no plans to make the new batch of spot bitcoin ETFs available on its platform to its brokerage clients.
•The SEC had previously rejected all spot Bitcoin ETFs due to investor protection concerns. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in a statement on Wednesday that the approvals were not an endorsement of bitcoin, calling it a “speculative and volatile asset.”
•The regulatory approval has sparked intense competition for market share among issuers, some of which have cut fees for their products to well below the U.S. ETF industry standard even before their launch on Thursday.
•Fees on new Bitcoin ETFs range from 0.2% to 1.5%, with many companies also offering to waive fees entirely for a certain period or for a certain dollar volume of assets. After the ETFs began trading, Valkyrie reduced its fees for a second time to 0.25% and waived them for the first three months.
•Estimates of the amount of spot Bitcoin ETFs vary widely. Analysts at Bernstein estimated flows would gradually build up to exceed $10 billion in 2024, while Standard Chartered analysts said this week that ETFs could attract between $50 billion and $100 billion this year alone. Other analysts said flows could reach $55 billion over five years.
•As ETFs began trading on Thursday, market participants were closely monitoring the bid-ask spreads: the difference between the price at which a trader buys an ETF and the price at which it can be sold. ETFs with tighter spreads are typically viewed as more desirable.
•Some analysts warned that the euphoria surrounding the approval may be premature. The broader investment community still views cryptocurrencies as risky, with scandals such as the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in 2022 adding to investor anxiety.
•Speaking at a webinar on Thursday, Sharmin Mosaffar Rahmani, head of the investment strategy group and chief investment officer of Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs, said cryptocurrencies have no place in an investment portfolio.
•However, some expect the products to pave the way for more innovative cryptocurrency ETFs, including Ethereum spot products.
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