Bitcoin price
Bitcoin and Ethereum—the two largest cryptocurrencies by market value—dipped again following the post-Japan scare comeback
Bitcoin’s price is down 2.3% from its Thursday peak, plunging below $58,600, while Ethereum lost 1.8%. Altcoins are a mixed bag: Solana shed 3.1% off yesterday’s highs, Dogecoin 3.6%, Shiba Inu 2.5%, BNB 2.2%, and XRP 0.8%, while Cardano added 0.3%
Today’s selloff appears to have no obvious driver and is likely a technical retreat.
For one, crypto broke away from the broader risk asset market—an unusual divergence. Today the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up 1.6% and 2.3%, respectively, recouping all of their losses from the early August sell-off.
The crypto market also turned a blind eye to Goldman Sachs’ blockbuster debut in crypto.
In its latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a mandatory report for asset managers with $100M+ in assets, Goldman Sachs reported a combined $418 million worth of Bitcoin ETFs as of the end of Q2.
Bitcoin ETFs are a “big psychological turning point” for asset managers, said Mathew McDermott, Goldman Sachs’s global head of digital assets, in CoinDesk’s Consensus 2024.
“Institutions like ours actually see the potential in how it can transform where parts of the financial system can operate in a much more efficient way,” he said.
Morgan Stanley also disclosed a 5.5 million share stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF—the largest Bitcoin spot ETF. Morgan Stanley’s stake is half that of Goldman Sachs’s, valued at $188 million as of the end of the second quarter.
Although a leap forward, Wall Street giant fillings are just a drop in the bucket.
Crypto adoption grows, but not as fast as expected
While Bitcoin adoption is growing with over $74 billion invested in Bitcoin ETFs at the time of this writing, it’s not exactly the “boom” crypto advocates anticipated at the beginning of the year.
The market capitalization of all Bitcoin ETFs makes up less than 10% of all Bitcoin in circulation. Besides, asset managers are still wary of pushing the new investment to clients.
So far, only one Wall Street bank has officially allowed its financial advisors to recommend Bitcoin ETFs.
On August 7, more than half a year after the introduction of the first spot crypto ETF, Morgan Stanley announced that its army of 15,000+ advisors will offer Bitcoin ETFs to their clients.
Other Wall Street giants remain on the sidelines.
According to people familiar with the matter, as reported by CNBC, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo aren’t letting their financial advisors push Bitcoin ETFs yet.
Whether other asset managers will follow Morgan Stanley’s lead remains to be seen—although this “procrastination” isn’t much of a shock considering the novelty of these investments.
