A lot of people thought I was crazy for adding a cryptocurrency allocation to a safety-oriented portfolio. But as I explained at the time, adding more types of assets – including a highly volatile cryptocurrency like Bitcoin – actually makes a portfolio safer overall. And it didn’t take long for the market to prove me right. Now, I recommend the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), explains Nilus Mattive, editor of Safe Money Report.
As the banking crisis got underway, investors flocked to Bitcoin because it’s a truly alternative way to store and transfer money outside the traditional financial system. By July, Safe Money readers were already taking half profits with a quick 44% gain.
Then, in October, I told them to switch the rest of their Bitcoin allocation into a related investment – the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). In plain English, the trust buys and holds Bitcoin on behalf of its investors. And its shares can be bought and sold during market hours through regular brokerage accounts.
Sounds just like a spot ETF, right? Sort of. The difference is that this type of trust doesn’t have a market mechanism for truing up the difference in its net asset value (NAV) – i.e. the value of the Bitcoin it holds – with the current market price for the shares in its fund.
During its early years, when it was the only widely available way to buy and hold Bitcoin in traditional accounts, investors were actually willing to pay big PREMIUMS over the trust’s NAV. More recently, the trust has been trading at a substantial DISCOUNT to the underlying value of its holdings – roughly 19% at the time of my original recommendation.
Now that the SEC is looking to approve a true spot Bitcoin ETF in 2024, GBTC has rallied strongly. I think ETHE could do the same going forward. It’s constructed in the same way as GBTC, and has also been trading at a discount to its NAV.
Plus, Ethereum is the other blue-chip cryptocurrency – essentially digital oil to Bitcoin’s digital gold. Reason: ETH is not primarily used as a medium of exchange or a store of value. It's more like the gas and energy that many crypto-based ecosystems need to operate – things like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and the next version of the Internet, commonly called Web3.
I believe adoption rates will likely be the biggest driver of cryptocurrency prices going forward – especially when you’re talking about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Right now, somewhere between 10% and 15% of the population owns some type of cryptocurrency.
Based on how other technologies have been adopted in the past, I would say it’s highly likely that we will see the curve accelerate toward 85% before this decade is over.
