Bitcoin has gained over 200% in 2019 after the 2018 bear market. While there was another such bull market in 2017 that drove Bitcoin to its highest ever price of $20,000, Senior Analyst at eToro, Mati Greenspan says that of 2019 is being driven by institutional investors rather than retail investors who caused the 2017 market.
Speaking on Block TV, he said: “The 2017 crypto boom was largely driven by retail investors, you know everyday people who had $50,000 or $100,000 in their bank account and just looking to invest it somewhere even at a risky place just to get some kind of return on their capital which they weren’t getting elsewhere…the 200% rise from the beginning of the year for Bitcoin till now was specifically on the back of new players entering the market and specifically institutional players.”
Negative rates in traditional markets pushing Bitcoin
After a short recovery from $9,000, Bitcoin has again crashed to under $11,000 and there are several explanations as to why the market is crashing in the face of geopolitical issues such as the Hong Kong protests and the market crash in Argentina.
While it is commonly said that Bitcoin has no correlation with traditional stock markets and so should not be dipping, Greenspan said there is a correlation between the two, just not very strong.
He however said the negative interest rates in traditional markets is certainly a good move for Bitcoin as major institutional investors, even though not many can greatly affect the price of Bitcoin with a quarter of their investment as they seek to diversify and this is likely to come soon as Bakkt has reached a level of agreement with the CFTC and Fidelity is already offering services to institutional clients although at a very low level.
“What’s happening right now in the traditional market is extremely interesting I think it sets up for a very perfect storm which is that yields across the board are extremely low and in many cases negative right now we are looking at about $15 trillion worth of negative yielding bonds across the globe,” he said.
“Shitcoins” must die
Greenspan said the flow of money from traditional markets is likely to favor Bitcoin specifically because investment and portfolio managers mostly have very little or no idea about blockchain and cryptocurrency so they wouldn’t go into unknown altcoins which will eventually die as ICOs from which they came have very high chances of dying.
Although it is not clear why Bitcoin is in a dip right now, Greenspan believes a perfect storm is brewing that will take Bitcoin higher than anticipated. Will it be this year or in 2020?