After the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)approved the first-ever spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), cryptocurrency investors predicted that bitcoin's value might surpass $100,000 this year.
In 2024, the impacts of the adoption of a bitcoin ETF, which would widen the range of investors who may obtain exposure to the crypto, would start to become more obvious, according to many crypto investors CNBC talked with.
Although the regulator has given the green light for the ETFs to launch, they have been quite clear that this does not mean they would be approving listing criteria for crypto asset securities.
The market has responded strongly to that news since Wednesday, January 10, when the SEC's decision was publicized. On Friday, January 12, one bitcoin was selling for $46,118, a decrease of around 0.4%. It hit $49,000 for a moment, the most it has been since December 2021.
Nevertheless, it is anticipated that Bitcoin will have significant price increases in the future due to ETFs and other changes in the cryptocurrency market.
What is Bitcoin ETF?
Forbes defines ETFs as a kind of investment vehicle that represents a group of assets, including stocks, bonds, or commodities. Like individual equities, ETFs are traded on stock exchanges. Nevertheless, ETFs provide investors with a diversified portfolio of assets, reducing the chance of individual equities falling to zero.
Now that the Bitcoin ETF has been approved by the SEC, investors may use their brokerage accounts to acquire shares of the fund instead of buying and holding Bitcoin directly on a cryptocurrency trading platform. Shares of the ETF reflect a stake in the fund's total holdings of Bitcoin, and the ETF holds Bitcoin on behalf of investors.
What do experts say?
The creator of SkyBridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, has said that he has been expanding his exposure to several cryptocurrencies in the last year. "I think this is a really big breakthrough for Bitcoin as a digital asset, it's a much broader story for digital property in general," he told CNBC. "
Scaramucci has predicted that bitcoin would reach $100,000 in the next year as far as its price goes. "Could bitcoin be $100,000, which is more or a little bit more than a double over the next year? I do believe that." However, he also made a disclaimer that he had been wrong for some time before.
Meanwhile, Vijay Ayyar, the vice president of international markets for the Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX, said that ETF approvals have already been factored in.
Since October 2023, the price of Bitcoin has risen from around $25,000 to over $47,000. "The next leg up is when we start seeing Bitcoin purchases for the ETF itself. That could happen in the next week or two," Ayyar stated.
