Bullish comments/moves in recent days by several major financial institutions such as Citigroup, the Goldman Sachs Group, Fidelity Investments, and JPMorgan Chase, are legitimizing Bitcoin’s store of value narrative, as well as making some perma-bears, such as Peter Schiff, extremely frustrated.
Here are a few examples of Wall Street’s seemingly much more positive stance toward cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin in particular:
- JPMorgan Chase. Per a report published by Bloomberg, on February 24, Joyce Chang, Global Head of Research at J.P. Morgan, discussed cryptocurrencies in a note to clients, where she wrote: “In a multi-asset portfolio, investors can likely add up to 1% of their allocation to cryptocurrencies in order to achieve any efficiency gain in the overall risk-adjusted returns of the portfolio.“
- Citigroup. On March 1, Citigroup’s premier thought leadership product, Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS), released a 108-page report on Bitcoin titled “Bitcoin: At the Tipping Point”, in which the authors wrote that Bitcoin could “become the currency of choice for international trade.”
- Fidelity Investments. On March 1, Jurrien Timmer, Director of Global Macro at Fidelity Investments, published a 12-page research paper on Bitcoin (titled “Understanding Bitcoin: Does bitcoin belong in asset allocation considerations?”), where he said “bitcoin has gone mainstream, already considered a legitimate asset class by more and more investors” and that “bitcoin is gaining credibility, and as a digital analog of gold but with greater convexity… bitcoin will, over time, take more market share from gold.“
- The Goldman Sachs Group. According to a report published by Reuters yesterday, Goldman Sachs has “restarted its cryptocurrency trading desk and will begin dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards for clients from next week.”
Peter Schiff, who is one of Bitcoin’s harshest critics, is the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, a full-service, registered broker/dealer specializing in foreign markets and securities, and founder and Chairman of SchiffGold, a full-service, discount precious metals dealer. As you read the two tweets shown below, you can almost hear a sigh of exasperation from Schiff as he objects to what seems to be the start of Wall Street’s love affair with Bitcoin:
Regardless of what Schiff thinks, the fact that even a perma-bear like him is conceding that Wall Street is recommending investment in Bitcoin as part of a multi-asset portfolio seems very bullish, and all this positive news is currently (as of 15:28 UTC on March 2) helping Bitcoin to comfortably stay above the $48,000. Data from TradingView tells us that the Bitcoin price reached today’s intraday high of $50,250 at 00:24 UTC.
According to data by CryptoCompare, as of 15:32 UTC on March 2, Bitcoin is trading around $48,710, down 1.18% in the past 24-hour period, but up 68.12% in the year-to-date period.
Interestingly, one former perma-bear, Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary (aka “Mr. Wonderful” on ABC TV series “Shark Tank“), said last week that an improving regulatory climate had changed his mind about cryptocurrency.On February 23, Hadley Gamble, a CNBC anchor based in Abu Dhabi, talked to O’Leary about crypto. According to a report by Bitcoin.com, O’Leary told her:
“I actually think that digital currencies are here to stay. Most people that are willing to hold them, including institutions over the last 90 days, are willing to deal with the volatility…
“I am fascinated. I’m investing. I’m holding a 3% weighting in it between ethereum and bitcoin. The volatility sickens me but I’m getting used to it…
“And, finally, I’m starting to think about how do I invest in the infrastructure of mining bitcoin.“
Earlier today, popular crypto analyst and trader Michaël van de Poppe offered this technical analysis of Bitcoin’s price action:
Finally, as Huobi Research pointed out earlier today, according to the website “Bitcoin Treasuries“, currently we know of at least 42 companies that are holding a total of 1,350,063 BTC (the number has gone up since Huobi Research posted their tweet).
And according to Ki Young Ju, the CEO of South Korean blockchain analytics startup CryptoQuant, the relentless buying of Bitcoin by institutional investors appears to be continuing today:
Featured Image by “SnapLaunch” via Pixabay.com
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
