Another great article out of Palm Beach! This combined with Japan making Bitcoin a legal currency and Fidelity looking to add Bitcoin this fall via Coinbase. Things are looking good this fall for Bitcoin.
By Greg Wilson, analyst, The Palm Beach Daily
On November 18, 2004, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made a big announcement.
It approved the world’s first gold exchanged-traded (ETF) fund.
By the end of that year, the fund was worth $1.3 billion… Seven years later, it had become the world’s largest ETF…
Like other ETFs, GLD is a security that trades like a stock. The goal of the fund was to expose more people to gold ownership.
It was an immediate hit…
By the end of 2004, it had already accumulated $1.3 billion in assets. That was just the beginning.
At year-end 2005, it had accumulated $4.3 billion in assets. By 2006, it climbed to $9.3 billion. And it would go on to top $75 billion in assets.
In fact, the gold ETF became the world’s largest private owner of gold bullion in the world.
The gold price followed. From $442 at the launch of the ETF, gold rose 89% and stood at $834 by the end of 2007.
What’s interesting is that the majority of participants in the gold ETF had never bought gold before.
It’s estimated that 60–80% of GLD buyers were new to gold.
GLD’s success shows you the impact regulatory approval can have for an asset.
I’m telling you this because we’re seeing a similar situation play out in bitcoin. And just like GLD, it will send a flood of money and new investors into bitcoin.
Bitcoin Gains Regulatory Approval
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates futures and options markets.
Last week, the agency granted the first-ever exchange license to a bitcoin options service.
I won’t bore you with the details. All you need to know is it’s extremely bullish for bitcoin.
The company getting the license is bitcoin exchange LedgerX.
Here’s why the news is so important…
Large institutions such as hedge funds have refrained from investing in bitcoin.
Now, that’s about to change.
There are two reasons for this.
First, they were afraid of trading a non-regulated asset. Now that LedgerX is approved by the CFTC, this hurdle is removed.
Second, they had no way to hedge risk. Portfolio managers lose their jobs when unhedged portfolios blow up. That’s why institutions hate unhedged risk.
With the pending launch of LedgerX, institutions will have an options market they can use to hedge their cryptocurrency positions.
And that will open the floodgates to enormous institutional investment.
How to Profit From the CFTC News
The simplest way to play this news is to buy bitcoin.
Buy bitcoin now so you can get ahead of the flood of institutional money coming to the market