Bitcoin could hit $88K by end of 2024: Bitwise analyst

well Bitcoin reaching its highest level in more than two years after breaking above 45 54,000 in today's trade but it's not the top cryptocurrency of 2024 Year date that title goes to ethereum Ether has managed to outperform its larger crypto rival with more we're joined by Ryan rmon a bitwise senior crypto research analyst hey thanks for being here so um I guess let's start with ethereum here Bitcoin caught a bid when it spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved is anticipation of The Ether spot ether ETFs being approved is that what's going on here I certainly think that's a bit of what's going on here I mean we we saw Bitcoin ETFs become a by the rumor and by the event situation and so I I'm not surprised that we're seeing ethereum catch a similar bid here heading into the potential approval of spot ethereum ETFs in May so yeah that's definitely driving some interest from institutional investors we're seeing a lot of interest in the options and Futures Market market for ether ahead of that potential approval date so I certainly think that's contributing to the outperformance from ethereum relative to bitcoin this year and recently I'm interested Ryan because you know let's be honest I mean Gensler didn't want a spot Bitcoin ETF you know he was dragged into it it's unless you disagree so I'm interested you know to get a spot ethereum ETF do you think you'd actually need to see another lawsuit yeah no I agree with you I think it's a great point we we didn't see spot Bitcoin ETFs get approved on the first goal around certainly there were many attempts at bringing spot Bitcoin ETFs to Market before we ultimately got an approval and that was on the back of a grayscale lawsuit that ultimately benefited ETF issuers and drove to that approval I don't know the same will need to happen for ethereum ETFs I certainly don't know if the market is necessarily in a point the SEC would like to see in order to approve those spot ETFs this may I think it's about a 50 50% chance that we'll see approval or we'll see rejection and kick it out to another kind of round of applications in the future I don't know if a lawsuit is necessary we're definitely not at the point where any of the issuers could file a lawsuit today and so uh perhaps on the tale of a of a rejection we could see that happening we did see ethereum Futures ETFs get approved last year and that certainly was the case for Bitcoin where those preceded to spot Bitcoin ETF issue it so you know it's up in the air but I think that we have about a 5050 chance of approval or denial coming up in May um and what is obviously ethereum is not the only thing rallying so we've got also sort of a broader rallying crypto Bitcoin we mentioned as well above 54,000 there's a lot of talk about the having maybe playing a role here what and it's always a little bit tricky to figure out exactly what's going on but what's your best guess yeah it's certainly tricky there's a lot of forces at work here in the crypto market so I think on the on the for the case of Bitcoin we're seeing two things at play there's a lot of excitement around the having we're certainly seeing Futures Traders kind of take those positions going into April around where they think the price is going to move and following the having we think they're positioned bullishly and that's what the data would show us for ethereum it's speculation on ethereum spot ETFs there's a lot of excitement around a new upgrade coming to the ethereum protocol the ethereum network in the in March it's called Denon it's it's kind of a funky name but that should lower the cost to transact on ethereum and ethereum l2s so that's a really exciting development that should bring new use cases and new Adoption and activity onto the ethereum market then you have platforms like salana which have really had outperformed other crypto assets back in 2023 and have had a strong 2024 we're seeing a resurgent in nft trading volume nft prices so I think ultimately what we're seeing is crypto's kind of rising from the ashes of the 2022 Market in 2023 was the start to that rally but we think that we're in a multi-year Bow Cycle and all elements of the crypto space will certainly have their moment Bitcoin in the spotlight right now ethereum making its way up there and I think other l1s and other l2s and other defi assets and nfts will have their moment in the Sun as well and and Ryan you know I'm interested just longer term how you think these new vehicles these new products these new spot Bitcoin ETFs what are they going to mean for the underlying asset Ryan how are they going to impact pricing for Bitcoin in the months years ahead do you think oh yeah I mean we love these ETFs of course us at bitwise we did launch a spot Bitcoin ETF in January alongside the other ETF issuers and we've been tremend tremendously happy with the success of those products we've seen over a billion in ass assets flow into our spot Bitcoin ETF across the board there's been more than 15 billion of assets flowing into spot Bitcoin ETFs and what does that mean for price and the market that's all buying pressure on the underlying spot asset and when we have that kind of demand shock coming into the market I think it's no surprise we've seen the price of Bitcoin rise following the launch of those ETFs and I think it would be the same for ethereum or other assets if there were ETFs to come to Market you have the the demand coming from those sideline investors of course those institutional investors Financial advisors raas hedge fund managers who really wait for that regulatory stamp of approval and that institutional vehicle to be brought to Market before they seriously consider allocating to the space and with all that sideline capital I think we're still in the early Innings of crypto reaching it kind of point in the adoption curve where we have everyday investors institutional investors and Retail investors all allocating to these these products and ETFs are just one of those really great vehicles that help bring those investors to Market and help create a highway for them to allocate to not just Bitcoin but ethereum salana and other assets as they eventually make their way into the ETF format um Ryan are are you somebody who sets targets do you have do you have uh some price projections for your end yeah price targets are always fun I'll go ahead and throw throw one out there uh we did release a prediction in December actually before we got into the new year where we thought Bitcoin would hit in 2024 and we still stand by that prediction we think that Bitcoin will certainly set all-time highs in 2024 that previous Price is Right Around 69,000 but we don't think it's going to stop there we think that we'll at least see a 10 to 15% bump over the last all-time high in 2024 that would take us to the mid 80k range so I think our Target was 88,000 by the end of 20124 and I'm still sticking by that seeing all the excitement in the market today all right we'll hold you to it well at least we'll have you back on to talk about it Ryan thank you so much appreciate it thank you looking forward to it thank you

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Length: 6min 27sec (387 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 26 2024