We are so out of the era where crypto was seen as something that would compete with governments and banks. It is now these institutions that are talking about crypto adoption and regulations sometimes even more that the crypto projects themselves.
Who would have thought a time like this will come. The almighty Wall Street is making a shift towards Bitcoin but they're doing it quietly although not slowly. The main change began with Donald Trump when he made all the promises about crypto and Bitcoin regulations that'll favor the crypto community.
He made an executive order on January 23 of this year and that pushed the top policymakers to include or let me say integrate crypto and some other digital assets into their traditional financial systems
Some few weeks after this executive order, Trump's SEC appointee made another good move for crypto by revoking SAB 121. SAB 121 for those unaware is an accounting rule which made it quite difficult for banks to have crypto. It basically forced the banks to list crypto on their balance sheet as part of liabilities so that meant it would be risky for them to hold crypto.
The changes are already happening and Wall Street being a smart institution is not going to sit down and watch the whole thing happen without taking advantage of it. They're handling the whole Bitcoin adoption situation as a done deal and making moves to use it.
Not too long ago, Wall Street dismissed Bitcoin as a fad or a short lived trend. Warren Buffett actually called it rat poison and Jamie Dimon compared it to tulip bulbs. So clearly you could tell the wall street big names did not have good opinions regarding Bitcoin or crypto in general. All that is changing pretty quickly.
Now, we have giant companies like BlackRock, Fidelity and Morgan Stanley all offering Bitcoin ETFs. Did you know that Goldman Sachs quietly bought up $1.6 billion worth of them. All that happening while Micheal Saylor of Microstrategy is just buy billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.
There was a time where your financial advisor will never tell you to buy crypto, it was a taboo against their principles. Now these same financial advisors are allocating crypto to client portfolios than ever before. These investments have doubled last year’s rate.
The good news is that Bitcoin is starting to be seen as a legitimate portfolio diversifier, much like gold. It's good for the entire crypto community because we need a good name if we hope to get the adoption.
Right now, most institutional Bitcoin, that is the Bitcoins owned by giant companies are stored with crypto native firms like Coinbase, which controls 86.4% of Bitcoin ETF assets. Perhaps one day we might have the companies establishing their own exchange platforms. I hope the majority of them will be decentralized though.
The traditional banks are stepping in to fill the gap, with Citi and State Street planning to offer crypto custody services next year. Crypto is just going to get a whole new identity in the world.
It does make me wonder though, if all these firms, institutions and countries are getting involved, perhaps that'll change most people's predictions on how crypto would operate in the future. It may not be as decentralized as we thought it would remain.
Did you also know that even pension funds and sovereign wealth funds are getting involved.
Wisconsin’s state pension fund doubled its Bitcoin ETF holdings to $320 million. Michigan’s pension fund holds Bitcoin ETFs and Pennsylvania approved legislation allowing up to 10% of its funds to be allocated to Bitcoin.
It's all in the crypto news.
All this happening and remember there's the national crypto reserves. Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis even introduced a bill suggesting the U.S. acquire one million BTC over five years.
With today's rate or price of BTC that'll be 82.5 billion dollars to get it. You know if the U.S starts doing this, other countries will start stocking up BTC in some form of crypto race to who's going to own more.
I can't boldly predict what happens next though but if they're saving Bitcoin, the only rational thing to do next should be allow BTC payments otherwise there may come a time where the countries having it as reserves sell the crypto and that'll be a huge dump. Imagine the U.S does that after they manage to acquire the 1 million Bitcoins.
What do you think about the future of Crypto in general. From what's going on in the world, do you think we're headed towards the right direction?