The cryptocurrency industry had a busy week. The bitcoin market, not surprisingly, took center stage when the SEC announced that it would review its decision to reject the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF. The price of bitcoin plunged when the decision was initially announced in March but has since rebounded to set new highs over $1300. No word on when the new decision will be made but it seems like the odds of getting the bitcoin ETF approved are as high as they’ve been at any point.
Also fueling interest in bitcoin was news that Japan was officially recognizing bitcoin as a legal currency. China has been less apt to accept bitcoin and announced that it would take a 0.2% fee on any bitcoin related transaction.
With all of this going on, I was able to get some brief commentary from three experts within the cryptocurrency space talking about where they think bitcoin is headed in the near future. Simon Yu is the CEO of CakeCodes, whose BitMaker app allows users to earn bitcoin by testing games and apps. Perry Woodin is the CEO of Node40, the blockchain tech company that offers digital currency accounting services. Doug Miller is the VP of Business Development for KeepKey, a company that creates hardware wallets for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum.
Simon Yu, CEO of CakeCodes said:
“The astronomic price growth of bitcoin signals the increasingly widespread acceptance of digital currency in general. The market has now recognized that bitcoin is a better store of value than gold, being particularly useful in facilitating and securitizing financial transactions. As regulators and countries catch up to the growing demand and legally acknowledge bitcoin as legal tender, we can only expect the price to follow.”
Perry Woodin, CEO of Node40 said:
Bitcoin has been on a great run this year but I attribute the very recent growth to the SEC reconsidering its decision to deny the Winklevoss bitcoin ETF proposal. This is the latest in a string of good news stories for the world's most valuable digital currency, which has also been accepted as a legal form of payment in Japan. I am also of the opinion that the entire digital currency industry is on a tear at the moment, which has pushed bitcoin's price up. Dash is up big, so too Ethereum, and I see an alt coin ETF becoming a reality in the not too distant future.
Doug Miller, VP of Business Development for KeepKey said:
Bitcoin has momentum; more and more people and businesses are becoming aware of how important this form of payment and investment is becoming. With supply being low and demand being high, this is a great formula for bitcoin's rising value.
A couple of points I’ll touch on quickly related to the comments above…
- The increase in the value of bitcoin if the Winklevoss ETF gets approved seems imminent. I’ve read some pundits suggest that bitcoin would quickly eclipse $2000 based on increased demand once average retail investors have easy access to bitcoin as an investment. If you’re into real pie in the sky scenarios, you’ll probably be interested in a piece I threw up on Twitter this week where early Snapchat investor Jeremy Liew and Blockchain CEO Peter Smith slapped a $500,000 price on bitcoin by 2030. That would be nothing more than a 60% annual return.
- Speaking of ETF approvals, the bitcoin ETF isn’t the only cryptocurrency ETF being examined by the SEC right now. I wrote about how an Ethereum ETF is also in the works and how it might actually end up making it to market first.
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