Hunter Horsley, founder and CEO of Bitwise asset management firm, told CNBC that it is still early for investors and Bitcoin has a lot of room to run. According to the executive, the asset is greatly undervalued based on the interests it has received from institutions recently.
The CEO emphasized that 2024 marks the end of an early chapter and the beginning of a mainstream chapter. According to Hunter Horsley, investors now view Bitcoin as an asset class that has matured enough to have the regulatory clarity needed to drive investments.
Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley says Bitcoin is experiencing strong demand from investors
#Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley says, “It feels like Bitcoin has been around forever now… Investors are engaging now. They view it as finally having matured enough, having the regulatory clarity they need.” pic.twitter.com/0KaQaN1jpm
— cryptothedoggy (@cryptothedoggy) November 23, 2024
Hunter Horsley referenced Bitcoin’s deflationary mechanism, which has caused strong demand from investors and recently driven the asset’s price toward new all-time highs. Horsley also said that the asset’s price was experiencing fluctuations due to retail investors cashing out on some gains or hedge fund managers running strategies that trade around volatility while sitting on the supply side.
Horsley also referenced Coinbase’s recent share price surge, saying the company’s share price has soared since earlier this month’s U.S. elections. He said the world has entered a new chapter where regulatory headwinds are no longer present.
The change in investor sentiment has allowed investors to view the crypto exchange much more optimistically. The executive also mentioned that Coinbase has many opportunities, including the various business lines of the exchange, including on-chain activities and investments in the space. Horsley also highlighted that the crypto space could soon be witnessing a surge in the number of IPOs.
Hunter Horsley describes Bitcoin as different from equities
Hunter Horsley has been vocal about Bitcoin’s rising demand and the asset’s differences from the stock market. On November 9th, the executive wrote that Bitcoin’s difference from equities lies in its reflexivity.
Horsley said that when a stock price surges significantly, it gets to a point where investors term it “overvalued” and become less interested until the price corrects. He said that Bitcoin’s price behavior differs from that of the equities market. When Bitcoin rallies significantly, people view it as more likely to succeed and, therefore, be even more valuable. And so it’s likely to go up even further.
According to data from ETF tracking website Sosovalue, spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds witnessed inflows worth $490.35 million on Friday. That day, Horsley’s Bitwise did not record any flows but had recorded inflows worth $68 million the previous day and $9.2 million on November 20th. At the time of this publication, the net assets held by the Bitwise spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund BITB are currently worth $2.44 billion.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is currently trading at $97,966 and has shed off 0.34% in the last 24 hours from its seven-day gain of 8.22%. The digital asset has a market capitalization of $1.9 trillion and a 24-hour trading volume of $53.6 billion.
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