Bitcoin (BTC-USD) had a banner year in 2024, recovering from a long decline in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval of spot bitcoin ETF products. Now, the crypto community is closely watching the SEC’s next pending decision: approving a spot ether ETF linked to ethereum futures (ETH-USD).

Swan Bitcoin Chief Investment Officer Raphael Zagury joins Market Domination Overtime to discuss the outlook on these prominent cryptocurrencies, also commenting on what the 2024 US presidential race could mean for the crypto space and the likelihood of an ether ETF .

“If you look at where we are now in terms of volatility, volatility is quite low. We are in the 5% range, I would say, in the bottom decile in times of volatility”, says Zagury. “And I think the good news, if the past is any guide to what could happen in the future, is that periods of very low volatility in bitcoin tend to have impeding payback periods if you look 60, 90 days ahead. term, many things can happen in the short term, traders control the price…”

For more expert insights and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

Microstrategy diving further into Bitcoin with plans to buy another $786 million worth of the cryptocurrency.

And while Bitcoin has reaped the benefits of this year’s launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF S, crypto investors are already eyeing the next milestone for the market with the Ethereum spot ETF.

These are expected to be approved this summer here to discuss this in more detail.

Cisne Bitcoin, Director of Investments Rafael Zaguri, a pile on top of all this, we were just talking about politics.

There has been a flurry of lobbying activity in Washington when it comes to the crypto industry.

That said, we haven’t seen many fireworks on the price action front lately.

Rafael.

So what should investors look for there?

Yes, thanks for having me, Julie.

It’s great to be here.

I think, first of all, when we talk about the double haters, as I was listening to the topic, I think cryptography is becoming an influential topic.

Lots of double haters.

I think a lot of people, unfortunately, are losing a lot of trust in the system over the last few decades.

And when you have a team like that and we have politicians jumping to one side, maybe they move some double haters, but back to the price, which is what you mentioned, uh, the price of Bitcoin has been very stable, I think in the, in the , you know, if you look at the last month or so, uh, this is nothing new.

The story continues

This has happened in the past.

If you actually look at the price of Bitcoin, the way it moves, it tends to be most of the time, you know, it’s sideways down.

And so most of the advantage is captured in very short periods of time, right?

And I always say that’s why it’s a very difficult asset to hold in the long term.

Uh, because most of the time they’re going to endure pain, it’s weeks and months of pain, you know, to glory days, that’s the typical trajectory of Bitcoin going back to just the numbers.

If you look at where we are now, in terms of volatility, the volatility is quite lower, the 5%, I would say, the bottom decile in times of volatility.

And I think the good news, if the past is any guide to what might happen in the future, is that periods of very low volatility in Bitcoin tend to have impeded payback periods if you look 6,090 days ahead, right?

But in the short term, many things can happen in the short term.

Traders control the price.

And I think it’s always more important that we zoom out.

Look, go back to the fundamentals and then think about where Bitcoin could be.

No, you know, in 90 days, 60 days, but you know, in 5, 10 years because as an asset, that’s what we should be thinking about for Bitcoin, I’m interested, Rafael too when you talk to friends and family and they ask what, why would you own crypto here?

I’m interested in, you know, what are the reasons you tell them?

Because I, I feel like maybe history has changed, you know, it used to be, I think so, the idealistic Rafael, you know, at least among true believers this was really thought of as this paradigm shift.

Um, I’m wondering if you think that’s still the case or, or do you tell them?

It is a store of value.

It is a medium of exchange.

What are the reasons?

Yes, Josh, you know, I come from traditional finance.

I worked at Golden, I worked at Merrow.

I worked at Deutsche.

I worked at every big bank and for many years I tried to tell people about Bitcoin and most of them just shy away.

And I think about this a lot because people start, as you mentioned, a lot of them start many, many exchanges like the first one, you know, they try to put Bitcoin alongside PayPal and other things and other technologies.

But Bitcoin is much bigger than that.

From my perspective.

I think Bitcoin is the best savings technology we have ever seen as economists.

When I look at Bitcoin and you know, a monetary policy written in code is transparent, it’s completely predictable for 15 years without any changes.

Right.

There is not a single central bank in the world that has a monetary policy close to or similar to what we saw in Bitcoin.

And at the end of the day, when we talk about inflation and predictability, what really kills the plans of economic actors is the volatility of inflation.

If we had 2%, which is the central banks’ inflation target, which by definition is already very bad.

But let’s say they managed to reach 2% every month or every year without any change, that would be bad.

But that’s not what happens.

There’s huge volatility in some months, you know, the inflation of the things you buy might be closer to 10%, other months will be negative and planning around that takes a toll and it takes a toll on the economy and in the long term.

Not only does money printing continue, but things continue to be degraded.

And you know, if you look at a world of total unpredictability that’s what we have and the unpredictability increasing in Bitcoin.

I think it’s a beacon of predictability in a world where you can’t predict anything.

I don’t think if we looked at a Bitcoin price chart we would say that it is a beacon of predictability and that 2% inflation means growth.

So with growth comes inflation, this is generally how the economy works.

Although yes, we had very low inflation before the current regime.

But putting that aside for a minute, Rafael, I want to go back to something that you mentioned at the beginning when we were talking about politics and talking about the focus that those in the crypto community have kind of focused on this election.

Um, what are you looking for in terms of the biggest policy change that you would advocate that would help the crypto industry?

Yeah, I think we’re already seeing if I said, you know, in the past, if I told people that Bitcoin would become a topic of discussion between, you know, presidential debates, people would say that would be crazy, and they did that would never happen, you know, that was something that could never happen and it’s happening.

It started, you know, with senators talking about Bitcoin, then we had, you know, more people talking about it and now we have Trump coming in and what was a surprise to most people, you know, to some, some of us already we were in Bitcoin a long time ago.

Hearing him say, you know, the positive things he’s done.

Um, you know, and as I said, at the beginning, I think for people who are very disillusioned with a lot of things that are going on in politics, this could be, you know, a very substantial change.

Uh In addition to all of that, if you just look at, you know, like, uh, the ETF S being approved, I think it started with a lot of, uh, a lot of these things, uh and the whole process of getting the, the Bitcoin ETF approved, you know, this, this, this too, I think AF was hard to get through.

But the end result of all of this is that we’re getting a lot of things that, you know, we’ve been looking for for a long time, which is getting more support, more clarity around the, you know, the, how you should hold Bitcoin, how you can involve it.

And that’s all positive, I think, and I think at the end of the day, even when we talk about an Ethereum ETF, I think that all, all ETF S should be approved, which, the SEC should be focusing more and more is the which was to focus on, I think from the beginning, which is there, you know what they started when we had Securities Act 3433 and 34.

The whole objective was to provide more transparency, better disclosure, you know, miners who really highlighted the risks.

And I think there’s an opportunity here for the SEC to go back to its original mandate and help with that.

But overall, it’s very good and very positive to see the developments.

I think, you know, definitely heading in the right direction.

Rafael.

Great to see you.

Thank you for taking time for us.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

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