What a spot bitcoin ETF approval could mean for crypto investors

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has gotten quite a bit of buzz with institutional investors, but retail investors may still have some hesitation. Sam Callahan, Lead Analyst at Swan Bitcoin, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss what retail investors should consider before adding bitcoin to their portfolios.
Callahan acknowledges that “bitcoin might be volatile, but it is the best performing asset seven of the last ten years and ten of the last thirteen years.”
Callahan advises retail investors to not see a bitcoin investment as a quick fix, “it’s very important to view bitcoin as a long-term savings” and portfolio hedge. Knowledge is power, suggests Callahan who states plainly, “I think its important for investors to not just buy bitcoin, but to learn about what they’re buying.”
#BITCOIN #youtube #STOCKMARKET

About Yahoo Finance:

Yahoo Finance provides free stock ticker data, up-to-date news, portfolio management resources, comprehensive market data, advanced tools, and more information to help you manage your financial life.

– Get the latest news and data at finance.yahoo.com

– Download the Yahoo Finance app on Apple (https://apple.co/3Rten0R) or Android (https://bit.ly/3t8UnXO)

– Follow Yahoo Finance on social:

X: http://twitter.com/YahooFinance
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yahoofinance/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yahoofinance?lang=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yahoofinance/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yahoo-finance

It’s a big week for Bitcoin bulls any day now the Securities and Exchange Commission will decide on whether 14 different money managers are allowed to launch their own spot Bitcoin exchanges traded funds in the US a Bitcoin managed to close out 2023 with an impressive 156% gain as optimism for a spot Bitcoin

ETF fueled the cryptocurrency higher our next guest believes the imminent approval could be a large Catalyst for bitcoin’s price in 2024 and many more years to come he joins us now Sam Callahan lead Analyst at Swan Bitcoin thank you for joining us this morning an exciting week uh on Deck here so talk

About why you’re so optimistic about where bitcoin’s price will go from here given that other spot Bitcoin ETF approvals in other countries haven’t seen as much of a surge yeah thanks for having me I really appreciate it so it’s certainly an exciting time in Bitcoin and the reason

Why the industry is so excited about a spot Bitcoin ETF is it’ll give access to millions of investors Who currently find it a little bit harder to get exposure to bitcoin it’ll now be as easy as any other stock or bond to purchase Bitcoin in a traditional brokerage account but

Specifically who this helps the most is large institutions that manage trillions of dollars of wealth think financial advisors broker dealers endowments Pension funds right now it’s not that they don’t want to get exposure to bitcoin they can’t because of regulatory requirements that restrict them from buying spot Bitcoin but a Bitcoin TF

Changes that because it’s just a security like any other stock or Bond so it fits into their existing regulatory Frameworks and so now what we can potentially see is these large institutions uh investing tens of billions of dollars into the spot Bitcoin ETFs which will drive demand for

The underlying Bitcoin when you couple that with Bitcoin Supply which is fixed at 21 million it’s not really difficult to see why the industry is excited about the potential moving forward because some people are Wonder wondering obviously we didn’t see spot Bitcoin ETF we didn’t see the price sort

Of Skyrocket in other countries that have adopted it but as you look at some of the names that have amended their S1 forms in the runup to this obviously Black Rock arkhan vest 21 shares vanck Wisdom Tree Invesco Fidelity uh among some what does that tell us then about

Sort of these last minute changes what does that tell us about the preparedness here for some of these big investment Banks well these are large players these are the largest financial uh asset managers in the world Black Rock Fidelity they’re just crossing their eyes and uh crossing their te’s and

Dotting their eyes getting everything in order with the SEC to make sure that everything’s in order uh for them to launch these spot Bitcoin ETFs and I think when you compare other ETFs around the world like at the Toronto uh Stock Exchange um that was kind of launched at

The top of the bull market and then they saw a decline in the price so just in terms of the cycle when these are launching today we’re coming out of the bare Market we have a lot of momentum coming out of 20 23 we have more regulatory Clarity in terms of the

Broader crypto markets um and it’s really a constructive time for Bitcoin when you look at other developments such as uh the fby accounting rule changes that are going to allow it corporations to more easily buy Bitcoin on their as a treasury Reserve asset when you look at

The broader macro picture of the FED expected to cut rates you can see why there’s going to be a lot of demand for Bitcoin and just the education levels uh compared to 2021 and 2023 today it’s very different these institutions now better understand this new technology and they understand the value

Proposition of Bitcoin and so that’s why I think you’re going to see a lot more inflows than maybe what we saw in these older ETFs that launched abroad and we definitely see obviously more expertise coming to the table from institutional investors is that the same though for your for your regular retail

Investor here what should they be aware of as they’re sort of perhaps getting caught up in the hype wondering if this is going to be the big Catalyst of where Bitcoin is going to go from here well I think what retail investors need to understand is that you know

Bitcoin might be volatile but it is the best performing asset seven of the last 10 years and 10 of the last 13 years and so it’s very important to view Bitcoin as a long-term savings uh and as a way to protect their wealth from debasement as well as to hedge their portfolio

Because Bitcoin moves in a way that’s uncorrelated to other stocks and bonds so a lot of these uh institutional investors are now you’re hearing recommendations of a 1% allocation a 2% allocation or a 5% allocation into Bitcoin as a way to diversify risk of a portfolio and improve the performance of

An overall portfolio and so I think it’s important for investors to not just buy Bitcoin but to learn about what they’re buying and what they’re buying is a scarce digital store of value that is allows themselves to protect their wealth over long periods of time as well as provide correlated returns that help

Reduce the risk of an overall portfolio so bit as we’re looking at Bitcoin currently sitting at above 45,000 here what does that road for Bitcoin look like for the rest of the year how high do you expect it to go between what we’re seeing with spot Bitcoin ETF potential approvals as well

As the Bitcoin harving that’s supposed to be taking place in April yeah there’s a lot of potential Catalyst for bitcoin’s price and what you mentioned basically is on the demand side we have new on-ramps like the spot Bitcoin ETF like I mentioned that’s going to make it more accessible than

Ever before for retail investors as well as institutions to buy Bitcoin and at the same time you have on the supply side the having event and that’s where every four years the amount of Bitcoin that gets issued gets cut in half so it basically makes the available Bitcoin uh

More scarce and so you have two Dynamics increased demand and it’s getting scarce at the same time and that is really constructive for the price moving forward and if you look at past Cycles where there’s been a having bitcoin’s price tends to run after these having events and when you couple that with

Some of these more constructive demand factors you can see why people are really constructive about the price moving forward and there’s been a lot of I try to stay away from like specific price uh predictions but if you look at the Historical performance of Bitcoin the years after these hav events comp

And you combine that with the increased institutional adoption and Bitcoin could reach New Heights into to the six-digit figures uh in 2024 and Beyond and Sam I have to ask you because obviously when it comes to stock markets overall people think of the Oracle of Omaha you think of Warren Buffett who

Would be that for Bitcoin I’m watching some of the moves by Michael sailor of micro strategy here you know selling some stock here buying a lot of Bitcoin here what is the move here for some of these bigname investors and how they’re approaching this well I I do have to applaud Michael

Sailor I think what he’s doing is brilliant and in terms of he’s looking at his Equity he’s saying it’s overvalue overvalued so he’s issuing more and then turning around and buying uh a scarce digital store of value with it and put it into as a treasury Reserve asset and

I think it’s a brilliant strategy and I think what these large uh high- net worth individuals or institutions have to consider is what I mentioned before is that a little bit of Bitcoin goes a long way in terms of improving the performance of your overall portfolio

And you have to consider how to hedge against certain risks um like counterparty Risk uh when you look at the bank failures that happened in the spring you might want to own a little bit of your wealth in something that you own yourself that you can actually take

Ownership with you don’t have to hold it with any kind of trusted third party um that also protects yourself in a more structurally High inflationary environment in an inflationary environment you want to own hard scarce assets and so that’s why you’re seeing financial advisors and other institutions uh in institutional

Investors like Pension funds start to allocate towards alternative assets that are hard and scarce to Pro protect their wealth against inflation and so if we are entering this period of structurally higher inflation it’s hard scarce assets that you want to own and there’s nothing more scarce than Bitcoin and so I think

A small amount goes a long way and you want to own hard scarce assets and inflationary environment and that’s why Bitcoin is really attractive to all investors we certainly be tracking its performance excited to see where it goes from here Sam Callahan Swan Bitcoin lead analyst thank you for your time this

Morning thank you