A bitcoin ETF approval could revolutionize the cryptocurrency the way it did investing in gold a generation ago, and send bitcoin’s price rocketing to $200,000 by the end of next year, according to Standard Chartered. All eyes are on the Securities and Exchange Commission in the runup to its Jan. 10 deadline to approve or reject one of multiple applications to launch a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The agency is widely expected to approve more than one ETF, in order to level the playing field from the beginning. “We see this as a watershed moment for normalizing bitcoin participation by institutional money, and we expect approval to drive significant flows and price upside for bitcoin,” Geoffrey Kendrick, a London-based analyst at Standard Chartered, said in a note Monday. “If ETF inflows materialize as we expect, we think an end-2025 level closer to $200,000 is possible.” The British bank assumes 437,000 to 1.32 million bitcoins (or between $50 billion and $100 billion) will be held in spot bitcoin ETFs by the end of 2024. Standard Chartered has previously said the price of bitcoin could reach $100,000 by the end of this year. On Tuesday bitcoin traded just below $47,000, a level it reached Monday for the first time since April 2022. Standard Chartered’s bullish estimate looks back at the introduction of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF in 2004. Similar to bitcoin, the first gold ETPs, or exchange-traded products, were initially small and restricted to markets outside the U.S., such as Europe and Canada, Kendrick said. “The price of gold rose 4.3x in the seven to eight years it took for gold ETP holdings to mature after the first ETP was introduced,” he said. “We expect bitcoin to enjoy price gains of a similar magnitude as a result of spot ETF approval, but we see these gains materializing over a shorter (one- to two-year) period, given our view that the bitcoin ETF market will develop more quickly.” Bitcoin is currently up 10% in 2024, after soaring 157% in 2023. Some investors are concerned the market is overestimating the impact on the first day of a potential ETF approval. Even they acknowledge, however, that the launch of bitcoin ETFs — and flows of traditional fiat currencies into and out of them — are likely to be the most significant driver of the cryptocurrency’s price this year. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
