Jan Van Eck, CEO of the investment fund VanEck, believes that the value of one bitcoin could reach 250,000 dollars (236,360 euros). However, he is cautious as it could take decades before his prediction is reached.
Price and time
During an interview with the online platform Barron’s bitcoin came up. He made his bold prediction, but found it difficult to say when it would be achieved. Many, including the author of this article, believe that a prediction should have two properties: a price and a time indication. By keeping it at decades, Van Eck makes it very difficult to take him at his word.
Yet he is not the only one who is incredibly bullish on bitcoin’s long-term price even during this bear market. In April, a colleague of Van Eck’s said that bitcoin could even be worth $4.8 million if it becomes the world’s reserve currency.
Bitcoin is maturing
Jan Van Eck is known as a bitcoin supporter and says the value of BTC has the potential to rise further because it is a maturing asset. This means you can safely hold bitcoin for a long time because the true value will only be seen in a long time.
During that long time, Van Eck sees acceptance only increasing as there is more and more interest from institutional investors, governments and central banks. One of the things he refers to is that more countries will follow the example of El Salvador and the Central African Republic. They have, after all, rechristened bitcoin legal tender.
Gold and bitcoin
Van Eck also looked at the relationship between gold and bitcoin. According to him, the price of gold has hardly seen any significant upward movement in the past two years, and that is because part of the demand for gold has been taken over by bitcoin.
Nevertheless, he does not want to write off gold, believing that “gold will do better when everyone is worried about a global recession and wondering when the Fed will cut interest rates. Until then, gold is facing headwinds.”
Skin in the game
Van Eck also had advice for investors, namely that they should allocate a maximum of three per cent of their portfolios to bitcoin. Incidentally, he does not listen to his own advice, he has far more bitcoin than 3 per cent and that is because he is convinced that bitcoin can rise to great heights. In addition, he also has ether since 2019, because he argues that it is wise to have a diversified portfolio.
Bitcoin ETF probably not this year
In early July, the SEC will decide on two applications for physical bitcoin ETFs. Van Eck, who is no stranger to these applications himself, is pessimistic about the short term.
“The SEC will not approve a bitcoin ETF until it gets jurisdiction over the underlying cryptocurrency exchanges, which has to be done through legislation. And in an election year, legislation is unlikely. I’m pleased that there are bipartisan conversations about what that legislation should look like.”
VanEck was one of the first to file an application with the SEC for a bitcoin ETF based on the spot market. However, the SEC delayed and rejected all of the asset manager’s applications. One small success is that the SEC did approve a bitcoin ETF based on futures in October 2021.
