VanEck, an American investment management company based in New York, has spoken out again with bullish expectations for the price of bitcoin (BTC), the main digital currency on the market.
Matthew Sigel, head of research at VanEck, said in a recent interview with the CNBC television network, which bitcoin would reach 3 million dollars by 2050.
This prediction—assuming it comes true—should reassure long-term bitcoin investors, as short-term volatility will be temporary.
Particularly, these days, bitcoin could have high volatility due to various factors, mainly due to the elections in the United States that will take place next week.
As CriptoNoticias has reported, the price of BTC could skyrocket or plummet depending on who the winner is. Bitcoin investors seem to prefer a victory for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, over his Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris.
Bitcoin’s price rises in recent days—at times approaching $70,000—could be explained by expectations of a Trump victory.
Sigel explains that “Trump is clearly the most pro-crypto and bitcoin candidate, while Vice President Harris has not said a single word about it.” It is worth clarifying that he has said some things on the subject, although he does not seem to convince the bitcoiner electorate.
The executive adds that BTC is also going up due to monetary issues:
«About the correlations, the most significant in the long term for bitcoin are a negative correlation with the US dollar and a positive one with the growth of the money supply or M2. Clearly, on the latter, money growth has accelerated again with the Fed’s pivot, which could be playing a role. Additionally, some sellers are selling out. The governments of Germany and the United States sold $2 billion in bitcoin in recent months in a hostile manner. That has decreased, and I think the elections are helping. “The surveys are helping.”
Matthew Sigel, head of research at VanEck.
Sigel made reference to the current political environment, comparing it to the behavior of bitcoin during the US elections in 2020. The executive mentions that BTC had a significant rebound after the winner was known and something similar could happen again .
It is worth clarifying that the drops in interest rates and the large monetary issue to try to counteract the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly influenced the price of bitcoin in 2020 and 2021, by causing a huge injection of liquidity.
Even so, Sigel adds:
«Bitcoin is a chameleon. Their correlations change over time. “It is difficult to predict what it will correlate with in the short term.”
Matthew Sigel, head of research at VanEck.
Then, in response to a question from the interviewer, Sigel called bitcoin “an emerging market asset”due to the fact that it is not issued directly by US state agencies.
In relation to this, he mentions the conference that the BRICS had last week in Russia and which was opportunely reported by CriptoNoticias.
Sigel says about BRICS:
«This year there are six new members in BRICS, and the GDP of BRICS is now greater than the combined GDP of the G7. Of the six new members, three of them, Argentina, UAE and Ethiopia, are now mining Bitcoin with government resources. “So there is a great urgency outside the US to find a way to avoid the irresponsible fiscal policy that we have been pursuing here.”
Matthew Sigel, head of research at VanEck.
It is worth clarifying that what he says is not entirely true. Argentina is not a member of BRICS nor does it intend to be, at least under the presidency of Javier Milei.
Beyond that, Sigel’s idea has relevance. He adds: “Russia announced an initiative where its sovereign wealth fund will invest in a regional initiative to build Bitcoin and AI mining infrastructure in BRICS countries with the idea of using bitcoin for global trade. So, look, someday, I don’t know if in five or ten years, Putin is going to die. We are going to look to reintegrate some of these countries into the global financial system, and they will be trading bitcoin. What will we be doing [en Estados Unidos]?».
About your bitcoin prediction to 3 million dollars in 2050, Matthew Sigel confessed that it is based on a model developed by VanEck, taking into account a very long-term horizon.
That model includes the assumption that “bitcoin will become a reserve asset used in global trade and that central banks around the world will have a 2% allocation in it.”
Although — as he says — it may sound extreme, “it is a compound annual growth rate of 16% for a couple of decades. Therefore, seeing the price in millions of dollars in the medium term is something of high conviction.
Article written in collaboration with Nicolás Antiporovich.
