Bitcoin has seen unprecedented growth over the last 365 days. And yet, what must not be forgotten here is that the Bitcoin community that was formed during the 2018 bear cycle is very different from the one during the pre-2017 rally. Investors today are well-informed, financially literate enough to understand what they are getting into, and most of all, forced by collapsing global economic conditions.
Ergo, perhaps price is a very superficial metric to judge such growth and change in investors. However, there are other metrics one can always look at,
Institutional activity
This is a broader ceiling and includes activities by institutions like capital inflows, investments in the crypto-industries that could be direct/indirect, IPOs, etc. Take Coinbase, for example. The poster child for American crypto-exchanges has come a long way from being a start-up taking a chance with crypto to having its company valued at $8 billion for plans of a potential public offering.
Similarly, Bakkt, a place for institutions to invest in Bitcoin, is less than 2 years old and is also looking at an IPO.
Other institutional activities include the flow of institutional capital – MicroStrategy, Square, and Grayscale, and indirect investors like Black Rock, Morgan Stanley, etc.
Also, the growth of Grayscale Investments over the past year or two to handle $24 billion in AUM, with Bitcoin constituting 85.8% of it, cannot be ignored either.
Source: Skew
In addition to these, we have CME volumes hitting a new ATH amid a 20% correction, showing that institutions are also getting used to Bitcoin’s volatility.
Source: Skew
Finally, the aggregate BTC Futures OI also hit a new high on the charts, a finding that is indicative of bustling trader activity, despite the drop that liquidated cumulative positions worth $2.4 billion.
Hence, considering all of the above, one can ascertain that Bitcoin is fundamentally stronger than ever. What will this entail though? Well, this will translate into a surge in Bitcoin’s price, one that has never been seen before, as a result of which, Bitcoin will be hitting $100,000 or perhaps, $160,000 in the future.
