Bitcoin ETFs
On January 10, the SEC greenlit the launch of 11 Bitcoin ETFs. This development is significant because it:
- widens crypto’s availability, offering highly regulated, established investment vehicles to traditional institutions, financial advisors, asset managers, and their clients
- allows American investors to include Bitcoin in their retirement accounts
- sets the stage for other crypto ETFs (an Ethereum equivalent could come as early as May)
- paves the way for additional crypto regulation and clarity in the United States
Global regulatory clarity (and the removal of some major bad actors)
Last year saw several jurisdictions — including Canada, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UAE — offer crucial clarity for the crypto industry. At the same time, there was a substantial industry cleanup: along with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, ill-intentioned or negligent executives from FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, and Terra were prosecuted. Both developments should make crypto a safer place to invest.
Innovation
In the relative calm of the recent bear market, developers focused on building projects that can move the industry forward. Here are some things we anticipate seeing over the next 12 months:
- NFTs becoming a new form of revenue on the Bitcoin network, and an improved Lightning network increasing transaction speed
- lower fees and increased throughput on Ethereum, thanks to layer 2 networks
- using restaking to leverage Ethereum’s economic security to other networks and drive new experimentation
- a revived Solana community supporting thousands of transactions per second
- new crypto-enabled games, real-world assets (e.g. U.S. treasury yields) on chain, and wide-scale adoption of stablecoins across Latin America, Asia, and Africa
What’s next?
With inflation more under control in the U.S. and Canada, interest rates are expected to begin to fall in 2024. This could drive more "risk-on" behaviour, ultimately leading to more capital flowing into the stock and crypto markets. Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that the next bitcoin halving (every four years the reward for mining crypto is cut in half to help control inflation and maintain scarcity) will occur this year. In the past that has kicked off bull markets, but of course there’s no guarantee that would happen again.
Although the last 18 months have been among the toughest ever for crypto, it is still a young industry, and challenges can lead to growth. There is a lot of innovation to be excited about in crypto in 2024, we’re excited to bring it to you.