Mike Novogratz: „The crowd is coming“, for real this time
Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz attended a Benzinga Boot Camp in collaboration with BlockFi.
He said institutional investors are stepping off the beaten track and turning to bitcoin.
He predicts that bitcoin will trade at $ 50,000 in the next two to three years.
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Galaxy Digital chief Mike Novogratz has been a dominant voice in the cryptocurrency market. As a former hedge fund trader, he has a rare pulse on the institutional investment community and what they think about bitcoin.
During a Benzinga Boot Camp organized in collaboration with Bitcoin Trader app, Mike Novogratz shared his thoughts with host and podcaster Peter McCormack on how far the cryptocurrency industry has come and how it is likely to evolve. Institutional investors, of course, will play a big role in how the market moves, and according to Novogratz, all signs are there to point the way forward.
If you think you’ve ever heard Novogratz say “The crowd is coming” in reference to institutional adoption of bitcoin, you are right. The only problem was that the “mob” in question continued to sit on the sidelines for fear of dipping a toe in the crypto waters. This time, however, the Galaxy Digital insists the herd is really coming, and it has given plenty of reasons for it to be true this time around. He said :
I kept saying that the crowd was coming. And I was wrong. It was so slow to come. Now the crowd is really coming. And I see it, I get phone calls every day. So that left me very optimistic about the global space.
A bridge to institutions
Galaxy Digital recently ran an ad in the Financial Times to attract large investors. And Novogratz said the company is „recruiting“ to better connect and be a bridge with the institutional world.
MicroStrategy: his favorite story of the year
If you are wondering what brought Wall Street veteran Novogratz to crypto, that was the history of bitcoin. Keen on good history, that’s why he first invested in bitcoin, as a speculative bet. His belief has changed over time, and he now owns more bitcoin than gold .
His favorite story of 2020 has been one that most cryptocurrencies applaud as well, and it was MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor decision to get into bitcoin . He congratulates Saylor on being one of the first to come, but adds that he is waiting for the second company to step in, because then that would be „the dump,“ he said.
Large investors and DeFi
Novogratz spends time in the DeFi space , where he says there is “a lot of interesting stuff going on” but there isn’t much institutional money yet. He likens DeFi to a corporate sandbox, similar to bitcoin years ago. DeFi is ideal for smart people with capital to deploy, but institutional investors have a fiduciary responsibility to their senior clients. Decentralized finance is therefore not quite ready for prime time.
He says that as institutions get into crypto, „they’re a lot more sticky.“ As a result, there is a “changing of the guard” but not in a context where one group replaces another. Instead, as the market grows, the institutions‘ share in the crypto space, which was 2% two years ago, will slowly start to grow. Novogratz said that when it hits 30-50%, “it’s going to be a whole different market.”
The head of Galaxy Digital predicts that in the next two to three years, the price of bitcoin will trade at $ 50,000 or more.