Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices, including top ten coins ethereum, BNB, XRP, solana and cardano, have rocketed higher following the approval of long-awaited bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs)—despite fears they could destroy bitcoin "completely."
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The bitcoin price has climbed 150% since this time last year, with some predicting a "snowball effect" that could see the price continue to climb, while the likes of ethereum, BNB, XRP, solana and cardano have seen similar price gains.
Now, after a surprise transaction sparked wild speculation bitcoin's mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto had "woken up," bullish bitcoin and crypto price analysts have predicted the bitcoin market capitalization could surge into the trillions of dollars in just a matter of years.
"There's a finite supply and now we have a potentially huge increase in demand with a spot bitcoin ETF approval, so I think in five years something around $500,000 [per bitcoin] would be potentially achievable," Tom Lee, the head of research at Fundstrat, told CNBC, which would give bitcoin a market cap of almost $10 trillion, from just under $1 trillion today.
Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a range of bitcoin ETFs following a long Wall Street campaign to bring such a fund to market.
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, kicked off the spot bitcoin ETF race in June last year, with others piling in following a legal victory for crypto asset manager Grayscale over the SEC, forcing the agency to reexamine its bid to convert its bitcoin trust to a fully-fledged spot bitcoin ETF.
Ahead of the SEC's landmark decision, Standard Chartered analysts said they expected a bitcoin ETF to power the bitcoin price to $200,000 by the end of 2025 if its price follows a similar path to gold after the introduction of the first U.S.-based gold exchange-traded product (ETP) in November 2004.
"The price of gold rose 4.3x in the seven to eight years it took for gold ETP holdings to mature after the first ETP was introduced," Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick wrote in an emailed note.
"We expect bitcoin to enjoy price gains of a similar magnitude as a result of U.S. spot ETF approval, but we see these gains materializing over a shorter (one- to two-year) period, given our view that the bitcoin ETF market will develop more quickly. This is consistent with our end-2024 view of bitcoin at the $100,000 level. If ETF-related inflows materialize as we expect, we think an end-2025 level closer to $200,000 is possible."
Source : Forbes / Jan 11, 2024