Morgan Consulting
Mark Yusko of Morgan Creek Capital Management thinks $30 billion will flood into an approved, bitcoin-focused BlackRock ETF.
The number of regulatory requests to offer a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) coming from a range of institutional financial firms has led to bullish speculation and remarkable excitement from the crypto market.
As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) considers such filings from BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK Invest and more, it seems like at least one upcoming approval is just a matter of time. The SEC is set to hit its next set of deadlines for approval decisions in mid-October and in the meantime, investors are left to speculate about which firm might receive approval first.
Mark Yusko, the chief investment officer and managing director of hedge fund Morgan Creek Capital Management, is picking BlackRock.
“I believe and I’ve said multiple times that BlackRock will be the first one,” Yusko said during a recent appearance on the Paul Barron Network. “I might even go stronger and say they might be the only one… It’s certainly possible. What’s probably more likely is BlackRock first, and then a gap, and then some number of others. But the thing is: Whoever’s first is going to get the vast majority of assets.”
Yusko’s prediction that BlackRock will receive a first-mover advantage in offering a spot bitcoin ETF also leads him to believe the product will capture a lion’s share of the $30 trillion managed by firms that would seek bitcoin exposure through a regulated ETF product.
And, given that so much bitcoin is locked into wallets that may never be accessed again or is sitting in the hands of hyper-convicted holders who won’t sell, Yusko went on to make a bold prediction for how so much institutional capital will impact the bitcoin price. He put the dollar figure for “free-float” bitcoin — the amount of BTC that is readily available on the market — at just $100 billion.
“I believe the ETF will be approved sometime around year end … that will pave the way for a very large influx of capital,” Yusko said. “Let’s say one-tenth of 1% (of the predicted $30 trillion) comes in, that’s $30 billion… $30 billion on $100 (billion)? That will move the price.”
Yusko added that bitcoin’s upcoming reward halving event, when the BTC rewards that miners receive is programmatically cut in half, will create conditions for a parabolic price increase, leading to a decidedly bullish price target.
“There’s a built-in mechanism to drive the price higher… every halving has added a zero,” Yusko explained, adding that he thinks the effect of this next halving will be relatively muted, but could still drive the bitcoin price exponentially. “That gives us about $150,000, something like that.”
Reference: https://www.thestreet.com/cryptocurrency/markets/fund-manager-says-blackrock-etf-will-drive-150000-bitcoin-price
