Bitcoin Outlook for 2024

With the approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States, the price of Bitcoin is showing a record rise.

It started the year at $42,000, but rose to $73,500 on March 14, just two months after the spot ETF was approved.

Due to the weak yen, it has also exceeded the 10 million yen mark in Japanese yen. The fact that it has surpassed the highest dollar value of $69,000 recorded during the 2021 bubble has been engraved in the history of cryptocurrencies as an extremely important page.

Current Status of Bitcoin

Spot Bitcoin ETFs are doing well, with daily inflows exceeding $1 billion on March 12. This is a record speed even in the history of ETFs, and there is a possibility that it will continue to increase at an accelerating rate.

The driving force behind Bitcoin ETFs is BlackRock, a major asset management company. The amount of inflows into the spot Bitcoin ETF "iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT)" offered by the company is increasing day by day, and the amount of Bitcoin held has finally exceeded 200,000 BTC.

This is a larger amount than MicroStrategy, the US company that holds the largest amount of Bitcoin as a single company. At the moment, the largest amount of Bitcoin is held by "Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)" offered by Grayscale, but this ETF is being sold off due to its high management fees compared to others.

Therefore, it is only a matter of time before BlackRock surpasses Grayscale and becomes the ETF that holds the most Bitcoin.

As for the trends of institutional investors, the key to the future will be the interest rate cut trend by the US Federal Reserve (FRB).

Initially, it was widely believed that interest rates would be lowered as early as March 2024, but the most recent February Consumer Price Index (CPI) exceeded market expectations, showing that inflation remains strong.

Given this situation, there is no clear outlook for when interest rates will begin to be lowered.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, a major U.S. financial institution, points out that "we should wait until at least June of this year."

Depending on the situation, interest rates may be further delayed, and some analysts believe that it will be after the U.S. presidential election in November.

If interest rates are delayed, investors are likely to close their positions, which could cause AI-related stocks, which are currently supporting stock prices, to collapse.

Bitcoin is sometimes linked to these high-tech stocks, so it may be a good idea to keep a close eye on the stock prices of NVIDIA, Google, and other companies.