This week Bitcoin surpassed a $1trn market cap, meanwhile many investors feel they’ve “missed the boat,” according to a new survey by Parliament Street think tank.
“The Great Cryptocurrency Report” polled 2,000 UK savers, revealing 25% of those would have made a £1m profit had they moved all of their assets to Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency expert Stephen Kelso, Head of Capital Markets at ITI Capital, said, “The nomenclature ‘crypto currency’ has deterred many who have perceived it to be anti-establishment rather than as the increasingly relevant store of value against the rapidly accelerating debasement of fiat currencies.”
18% of those surveyed expect the price of Bitcoin to hit £100,000 valuation this year.
Not all consumers are convinced, 55% of respondents have no plans to invest in Bitcoin, and 52% admitted they were more likely to invest in traditional assets like gold, stocks or shares.
Kelso links Bitcoin’s popularity to Gold. Access to Gold opened up to institutional investors in 1976 with the introduction of futures, and then to the retail market in 2003 with the first ETF.
Kelso explained, “These are relatively short time-frames and Bitcoin is simply an evolution of the market’s toolbox to access a Scarcity Asset and protect portfolios.”
Kelso continued, “Bitcoin is the world’s first investment megatrend where retail investors have led institutional adoption and equity markets have taught institutions over the last year that they can no longer ignore the influence of retail platforms.”
Over the past year, Bitcoin was buoyed by external events. Elon Musk’s $1.5bn investment announcement lead to a value surge. 24% of the respondents to ITI Capital’s survey said Musk’s support for Bitcoin made them more likely to invest.
One of Bitcoins key pulls for investors is its decentralisation. Kelso noted, “This is an attractive proposition to billions of investors around the world who do not benefit from the same confidence in the structure of financial markets as we can assume in the UK.”
Though 30% of UK investors surveyed feel they have missed the boat, Kelso disagrees, suggesting the decentralised dynamics is an extension of the emerging market investment phenomenon, which is tied to EM GDP surpassing developed markets in 2007.
Keslo concluded, “This is why we expect interest in digital currencies to continue its upward trajectory as more investors look to diversify their portfolios.”
