Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has had a breakout year in 2024, rallying off of a long slump on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of spot bitcoin ETF products. Now, the crypto community is watching intently on the SEC’s next pending decision: approving a spot ether ETF tied to ethereum futures (ETH-USD).
Swan Bitcoin Chief Investment Officer Raphael Zagury comes onto Market Domination Overtime to discuss the outlook on these prominent cryptocurrencies, also commenting on what the 2024 US presidential race could mean for the crypto space and the likelihood of an ether ETF.
“If you look where we are right now in terms of volatility, volatility is fairly low. We’re in the 5% I would say bottom decile in volatility times,” Zagury says. “And I think the good news, if the past is any guidance of what could happen in the future, is that periods of very low volatility in bitcoin tend to have offside periods of return, if you look 60, 90 days ahead. But short term, a lot of things can happen in the short-term, traders control the price…”
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Video Transcript
Micro strategy diving in further with Bitcoin with plans to buy $786 million more in the Cryptocurrency.
And while Bitcoin has reaped the benefits from the launch this year of spot Bitcoin ETF S crypto investors are already eyeing the next milestone for the market with the spot Ethereum ETF.
They’re expected to be perhaps approved this summer here to discuss this in more.
Swan Bitcoin, Chief Investment Officer Rafael Zaguri, a pile on on top of all of this, we were just talking about politics.
There has been a flurry of lobbying activity in Washington when it comes to the crypto industry.
All of that said we have not seen some much fireworks on the price action front lately.
Rafael.
So what should investors be looking for there?
Yeah, thanks for having me, Julie.
Great to be here.
I think first of all, you know, when we talk about the the double haters, as I was just listening to the topic, I think crypto is becoming one topic that may sway.
A lot of the double haters.
I think a lot of people unfortunately are very, you know, losing a lot of trust in the system along the the last few decades.
And when you have a team like that and we have politicians jumping one side, maybe they, they will move some double haters but going back to the price, which is what you mentioned, uh Bitcoin price has been very stable, I think in the, in the, you know, if you look in the last month or so, uh this is nothing new.
This has happened in the past.
If you actually look at Bitcoin price, the way that it moves, it tends to be most of the times, you know, it’s it’s sideways are down.
And then most of the the upside is actually captured in very short periods of time, right?
And I always say that this is why it’s an asset that it’s very hard to hold in the longer term.
Uh because most the times they are going to be enduring pain, it’s weeks and months of pain, you know, for days of glory, that’s the typical trajectory of Bitcoin going back to just to the numbers.
If you look where we are right now, in terms of volatility, volatility is fairly lower, the 5% I would say bottom decile in volatility times.
And I think the good news, if the past is any guidance of what could happen in the future is that periods of very low volatility in Bitcoin tend to have offside periods of return if you look 6090 days ahead, right?
But short term, a lot of things can happen in the short term.
Traders control the price.
And I think it’s always more important for us to zoom out.
Look at, go back to the fundamentals and then think about where Bitcoin could be.
Not, you know, in 90 days, 60 days, but you know, 5, 10 years from now because as an asset, that’s what we should be thinking about for Bitcoin, I’m interested, Rafael too when you talk to friends and family and they ask you what, why you would own crypto here?
I’m interested, you know, what are the reasons you tell them?
Because I, I do feel like maybe the story has shifted, you know, it used to be, I think so, idealistic Rafael, you know, at least among the true believers it was really thought of as this paradigm shift.
Um I’m wondering if you think that’s still the case or, or do you tell them?
It’s a store of value.
It’s a, a medium of exchange.
What are the reasons?
Yeah, Josh, you know, I come from the traditional finances.
I worked at Golden, I worked at Merrow.
I worked at Deutsche.
Me, I worked at all the, all the big banks and for many years I tried to tell people about Bitcoin and most of them just shied away.
And I think a lot of it because people start, as you mentioned, a lot of them start as a many, many of exchange as their first uh you know, they try to put Bitcoin alongside paypal and other things and other technologies.
But Bitcoin is much bigger than that.
In my perspective.
I think Bitcoin is the best savingss technology that we’ve ever seen as an economist.
When I look at Bitcoin and you know, a monetary policy that it’s written in code, it’s transparent, it’s fully predictable 15 years without any changes.
Right.
There is not a single central bank in the world that has a monetary policy that it’s in were close or similar to what we’ve seen in Bitcoin.
And at the end of the day, when we talk about inflation and predictability, what really kills the plans of economic actors is volatility in inflation.
If we had a 2% which is the target inflation of the central banks, which by definition is already very bad.
But let’s say they were able to hit 2% every single month or every single year without any changes that would be bad already.
But that’s not what happens.
There is huge volatility some months, you know, inflation for the things that you buy may be closer to 10% other months will be negative and planning around that, it takes a toll and has a toll on the economy and longer term.
Not only that the money printing continues, things continue to be debased.
And you know, if you look at a world of full unpredictability is what we have and unpredictability increasing Bitcoin.
I think it’s a beacon of predictability in a, in a world where you can’t predict anything pretty much.
I don’t think if you look at a price chart of Bitcoin, you would say it’s a beacon of predictability and 2% inflation means growth.
So with growth comes inflation, usually that’s the way uh economics works.
Although yes, we’ve had very low inflation before this current regime.
But leaving that aside for a minute, Rafael, I want to get back to something you mentioned the beginning when we were talking about politics and talking about the um focus that those in the crypto community have sort of zeroed in on this election.
Um What are you looking for in terms of the biggest policy change that you would advocate for that would help the crypto industry?
Yeah, I think we’re already seeing if I said, you know, in the past, if I told people that Bitcoin would become a topic of discussions among, you know, presidential debates, people would say it was crazy that would, and they did that this would never happen that, you know, this was something that could never happen and it’s happening.
It’s started, you know, with senators talking about Bitcoin, then we had, you know, uh more people talking about it and now we have Trump coming in and which was a surprise for most people even, you know, for some, some of us had been in Bitcoin for a long time.
To hear him saying, you know, the positive things that, that he did.
Um you know, and as I said, in the beginning, I think for people that are very disillu with a lot of things that are happening in politics, this could be, you know, a very substantial change.
Uh On top of all of that, if you just look, you know, like uh the, the ETF S being approved, I think started with a lot of uh uh a lot of these things, uh and the whole process of getting the, the Bitcoin ETF approved, you know, that, that, that was also, I think A F was hard to go through.
But the, the bottom line of all of this is that we’re getting a lot of things that, you know, we’ve been looking for for a long time, which is getting more support, more clarity around the, you know, the, the how you should hold Bitcoin, how you can wrap it.
And that’s all positive, I think, and I think at the end of the day, even when we talk about an Ethereum ETF, I think all, all the ETF S they should be approved, what the, the SEC should be focusing more and more is what it was supposed to be focusing, I think from the beginning, which is there, you know what they started when we had the Securities Act 3433 and 34.
The whole goal was to provide better transparency better disclosure, you know, prospectors that really highlighted the risks.
And I think that there’s an opportunity here for the SEC to turn back to their original mandate and to help with that.
But overall, it’s just very good and very positive to see the developments.
I think, you know, definitely heading in the right direction.
Rafael.
Great to see you.
Thanks for making time for us.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
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