According to Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, Bitcoin (BTC) is seeing inflows from the chief investment officers of some “multi-billion dollar institutions”.
Related Reading: Analyst: Crypto Markets Likely to Plummet 61% Before Next Bull Run Begins; Here’s Why
While this is not direct investment from funds — be it family offices, hedge funds, pensions, venture funds, or endowments — this is a strong step in the right direction for the cryptocurrency space.
NEW TREND: I’ve met with multiple CIOs at multi-billion dollar institutions lately.
The firms aren’t invested in Bitcoin yet, but the CIOs are.
That will quickly change ?
— Pomp ? (@APompliano) July 24, 2019
You see, with time, the pro-Bitcoin attitude held by the heads of billion-dollar funds and institutions, coupled with infrastructure plays like Fidelity Digital Asset Services, will spread to the funds that they spearhead. And soon enough, the funds themselves will begin to directly own BTC.
Institutional Involvement in Bitcoin Has Begun
Pompliano isn’t lying, the trend of fund managers going crypto has already begun.
Yesterday, NewsBTC reported that a bet on Bitcoin helped the fund of Bill Miller, a prominent investor and economist, realize a 46% year-to-date performance. For those not versed in the world of traditional finance — 46% in just about seven months is absolutely insane, especially when the S&P 500 gained a relatively mere 7% in the same time frame.
imagine that – bitcoin driving alpha! https://t.co/6ZGtVPqXCw
— Meltem Demirors (@Melt_Dem) July 25, 2019
Miller isn’t just a fair-weather investor. Speaking to CNBC in an interview in early-2019, the Miller Value Partners founder, who once revealed that at least 1% of his net worth has been in Bitcoin since 2014, opined that the leading cryptocurrency is an interesting technological statement. This is a sentiment held by the chief executives of both Xapo and BitMEX.
He adds that the crypto asset class as a whole is viable, in that it is one that isn’t clearly correlated with bonds, stocks, or even the foreign currency market.
Also, Mark Mobius, an 82-year-old legendary emerging markets investor and fund manager, was reported by Bloomberg as saying that he is keeping a close eye on Bitcoin.
In interviews, the investor has claimed that he believes that digital assets can find use in today’s ever-changing economy. And responding to an inquiry about how Bitcoin and cryptocurrency can aid Venezuela, he specifically looked to this asset class’ viability in global money transfer.
Also, Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and current Social Capital chief executive, proclaimed on live television that he believes Bitcoin is the “single best hedge against the traditional financial system”, driving his point home by touching on the value of decentralized technology in relation to the money-printing strategies of central banks.
It Only Makes Sense
These sorties into the crypto market only make sense. Delphi Digital, a cryptocurrency research firm, discovered a few months back that adding 3% of Bitcoin to a traditional portfolio actually improve its Sharpe Ratio — a financial measure used to gauge risk-return profiles.
Also, Binance Research recently found that including BTC in “traditional multi-asset class portfolios provides overall better risk-return profiles.”
In their report, they noted that while Bitcoin has been deemed an extremely volatile asset, with regular 80% downturns and flash crashes, it has had some of the largest price rallies in the history of modern assets.
Binance’s researchers continue, noting that with low spreads, high volumes, and clear signs of price efficiency — all tenets of a liquid market — Bitcoin provides a multitude of “diversification properties”, even for investors in the traditional realm.
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