As bitcoin (BTC) lurches around the $90,000-$95,000 range, down more than 10% from its all-time high a little less than four weeks ago, a contrast is growing among traders — whose technical analysis tools show the top cryptocurrency may be due to another dip – and long-term investors who believe the bull run is far from over.
That’s according to David Siemer, CEO of Wave Digital Assets, a company that provides asset management services to foundations and high-net-worth individuals in the crypto space. The company counts Charles Hoskinson, CEO of the company behind Cardano, as one of its customers.
“In 14 years of owning bitcoin, I’ve never seen a dichotomy like this,” Siemer told CoinDesk in an interview. “The traders are all worried and jittery and hedged, completely neutral or worse. And the long-term people are all super bullish.”
“There’s a really good chance we’ll go to $200,000 [per bitcoin] this year,” Siemer said. “Do I think we’re going to see $1 million dollars per coin in my lifetime? Sure. Not soon, you know, not in the next year. … The smart, more connected people that I know are also really bullish. That’s going to happen more in the next six months than most people realize.”
At the top of the list of developments for the coming year is that several jurisdictions — including the United States, Russia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and some European nations — are looking to take big steps in crypto’s favor, according to Siemer. (Wave runs crypto training programs for various branches of the US government, such as the Internal Revenue Service or the US Marshals Service, as well as other executive agencies around the globe; in fact, government practice is the company’s fastest-growing business.)
These steps, whatever form they take, are likely to have positive spillover effects on some of these countries’ private sectors, Siemer said. “[Japan or Singapore]these are societies where they actually trust and rely on their governments. If their government says it’s okay, it’s actually really okay. It’s different than in the US, where we think our guys are idiots.”
What is spurring such sudden interest in the crypto industry? First, the enormous success of the US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is forcing financial institutions around the world to think about ways to compete. This means creating exotic new products, such as multi-token yield funds, to compensate for the liquidity that was siphoned off by BlackRock’s IBIT.
“The ETFs were launched in America and they absolutely destroyed all the bitcoin ETPs around the world,” Siemer said. “They had all these terrible products and they were paying 1.5%. All those guys were broke.” Regulators, for their part, will tend to be supportive, Siemer said. For example, the EU may end up producing a friendlier version of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
The chances of seeing new strategic bitcoin reserves are also high, Siemer said. “Even if the United States does not create a reserve, at least several other countries are likely to do so,” he added. Not that he is bearish on the prospects in the American wave, he said, is currently in negotiations with seven different states that are considering the question of creating a reserve, Texas, Ohio and Wyoming among them.
What about the federal government? Siemer put the odds at slightly better than 50-50, thanks in part to the nearly $19 billion worth of bitcoin it already owns.
“That’s a decent start to a bitcoin reserve,” Siemer said. “All they have to do is not sell it. That’s a lot more palatable to the tax base than buying, you know, $10 billion worth of bitcoin.”
