Latest news about Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Your daily crypto news habit.
There is nothing stopping Bitcoin from attempting to become a six-figure asset, the Magentic managing director William E. Quigley professed in an interview with CNN Business.
The New York-based senior executive listed a string of reasons behind his bullishness on Bitcoin, the worldâs leading decentralized cryptocurrency whose rates surged from as low as $3,858 just shy of $58,500 in the previous 12 months. They included Bitcoinâs scarcity and growing demand among mainstream corporate houses that look for alternative store-of-value assets for their balance sheets.
A pre-embedded algorithm within the Bitcoin blockchainâs source code reduces its supply rate by half every four years or after every 210,000Â blockâan event known as âhalving.â Meanwhile, there can only be 21 million BTC tokens in existence, making the cryptocurrency scarce, making it more valuable in the long-term if the demand for it rises.
Bitcoin has had three halvings in the past. The November 2012 and June 2016 supply cuts saw the BTC/USD rates jumping from about $12 to nearly $1,150 and $650 to almost $20,000.
Meanwhile, the third halvingâthat took place in May 2020âhas followed up with up to 558 percent rise so far. It prompted Mr. Quigley to see a bullish fractal.
âWe are about halfway through the post-halving bull run,â the executive noted. âSo, by my judgment, we have a lot more to go with Bitcoin. Certainly a hundred thousand and quite possible a $150,000 by the end of this year to maybe Q1 next year.â
But
To many, Bitcoinâs scarcity is a ploy to lure âdegenerate gamblersâ into investing in it.
Economist Nouriel Roubini, Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff, and financial commentator Frances Coppola argue that many cryptocurrency projects have lifted Bitcoinâs open-source code to develop copycat tokens. That is an entirely different thing if one looks at gold, a precious metal that risks counterfeiting but not copying.
Bitcoinâs proponents defend it by bringing in the âtrustâ factor. The community believes bitcoin more than its copycat rivals thanks to its unmatchable network effects with zero histories of transaction reversals, double-spend hacks, and 51 percent attacks. People see bitcoin as the most secure public ledger.
Bitcoin Demand Grows
That explains why even corporates have started embracing the flagship cryptocurrency as an alternative to cash. Tesla, the worldâs leading electric carmaker, revealed in February that it added $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in its balance sheet, noting that it would also start accepting the cryptocurrency for its services and products.
MasterCard, a credit card giant, announced that it would integrate crypto tools into its services in the same month. Bank of New York Mellon, the USâs first banking firm, joined the ranks by announcing that it would offer bitcoin custodianship via the same platform that its clients use for traditional securities and cash.
âThe latest survey I saw showed that 5 percent of the public-traded companies in the US would consider adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets,â said Mr. Quigley. âAnd the reason they are thinking that is that corporates have trillions of dollars in cashâand where do they put it? There are government bonds but $17 trillion of them yield negative returns.â
He added that the corporatesâ CFOs worry about inflation and the US dollarâs diminishment. They think they would be able to avoid the conventional market risks by hedging into Bitcoin.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.