Novogratz: Institutions Are Coming Into Crypto & Bitcoin Price to Rebound

Over the past day, Bitcoin has collapsed. After mucking about the $10,000 support level for a number of days, the cryptocurrency fell by 5% in under an hour, shedding $500 and losing a number of key technical levels.

Interestingly, Michael Novogratz, a former Wall Street investor turned cryptocurrency proponent, is unfazed. In a recent interview, he asserted that the Bitcoin price is ready to move higher once again.

Bitcoin to Resume Uptrend

Bitcoin is poised to head higher, according to Novogratz in a recent interview with Bloomberg. He argued that now, institutional investors will begin to make a true foray into the cryptocurrency game.

Indeed, Bakkt, the cryptocurrency futures exchange and infrastructure provider that has been backed by the Intercontinental Exchange and Microsoft, is launching its institutional products in the coming weeks.

In fact, Bakkt recently revealed it will be launching its Bitcoin custody service on September 6th, which will be followed by the activation of its Bitcoin futures contracts on September 23rd.

Cryptocurrency analysts bill the new exchange as one of the “most bullish” institutional events to ever grace the cryptocurrency industry. You see, Bakkt is expected to allow for many of Wall Street’s institutions to make their first allocations towards Bitcoin, having been approved by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and backed by veterans of traditional finance and cryptocurrency.

What’s interesting is that preliminary discussions already indicate there is institutional demand for such a product. Fundstrat Global Advisors analyst Sam Doctor recently wrote on Twitter that at a Bakkt-sponsored event held in July, he felt as though there are a “critical mass” of institutions — everyone from market makers and liquidity providers to traders and hedge funds — ready to adopt Bakkt’s products.

That’s not all. In a similar string of news, Coinbase’s chief executive, Brian Armstrong, wrote on Twitter that there is around $200 million to $400 million worth of cryptocurrencies deposited into Coinbase’s coffers each week from “institutional customers”.

Novogratz’s call for Bitcoin to continue its push higher comes shortly after he asserted that the cryptocurrency market would enter a short period of consolidation, which he claimed would see BTC trade in a range around $8,500 to $14,000.

While he didn’t mention a specific price target in this new interview, he told Bloomberg earlier that he expects for Bitcoin to shoot to $20,000 by “the middle or the end of the fourth quarter [of 2019].”

Crypto Unlikely To Impact Consumers Yet

While Novogratz is expecting for Bitcoin to continue on its merry way, he asserted in the same interview that cryptocurrency technologies are unlikely to impact the lives of mom and pop investors in the short run, claiming that this industry still needs another half-decade to impact society. He elaborated:

“What 2017 did, that crazy bull market, is it got people unrealistic expectations on how fast the blockchain revolution, the crypto revolution is actually going to happen. You gotta give them some more runway before we give them the thumbs up or thumbs down.”

Backing his point, he looked to Peloton Interactive, a home exercise startup that went live after years in development and took Wall Street by storm.

Indeed, as of the time of writing, few cryptocurrencies actually have bonafide use cases. But, momentum in the development side of the industry is starting to trend higher once again. And with applications for this technologies comes adoption, and potential rallies in the prices of digital assets too. As Novogratz put it, “this is not a backwater experiment anymore, this is part of the financial infrastructure”.

   

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