Bitcoin has been registering new highs on the price charts this year, despite the crypto seeing a period of mild correction. Unlike the 2017 rally, the 2020-2021 rally has been associated with institutional interest. Many prominent institutions have shown trust in the asset value of Bitcoin and included it in their company portfolios. These include many names like MicroStrategy and Square Inc., among others. In fact, at the time of writing, the cumulative total of the companies holding Bitcoin sat at 1.151 million BTC.
Joining the long list of investors is NexTech AR Solutions, with the firm increasing its Bitcoin ownership to 130.187 Bitcoins at an aggregate cost of $4 million. The provider of virtual and augmented reality (AR) experience technologies and services also noted that it may add more BTC to its treasury in 2021.
The investment in Bitcoin is a part of the firm’s new capital diversification and allocation strategy, one announced on 29 December. Under this strategy, the company aims to maximize long-term value for its shareholders. It had initially purchased $2 million worth of Bitcoin last week, before adding an additional $2 million this week.
The CEO of NexTech Evan Gappelberg stated,
“This doubling down reflects our strong belief that Bitcoin is an excellent long-term store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash which is currently yielding 0.06%.”
As COVID-19’s impact hit the world, tech companies were one of the beneficiaries of it. As the world transformed digitally, interest in cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, also skyrocketed. Gappelberg added,
“As we enter 2021, I believe that the digital transformation has now created a paradigm shift in capital diversification to ‘digital gold’ or Bitcoin. As more institutional capital allocators adapt to this new paradigm, they will be prodded to diversify their portfolio into Bitcoin which will likely push the value of Bitcoin closer to the value of gold, meaning that over 90% of the upside for Bitcoin is still ahead of us.”
2020 saw the market’s institutions turn to Bitcoin. Now that regulators are also paying attention to crypto-businesses on the question of compliance, such interest might just peak even more.
