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Bitwise CIO Estimates Spot Ether ETPs Will Attract Billions: 'Not a Casual Guess'

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valuezone 28 June 2024

Bitwise CIO Estimates Spot Ether ETPs Will Attract Billions: 'Not a Casual Guess'

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan has predicted that spot ether-based exchange-traded products (ETPs) will have a favorable performance in financial markets when finally trading. Hougan estimates that these products will have net flows of $15 billion during their first 18 months of trading, taking into account the size of the ether ETP market in other regions and their relative market capitalization.

Bitwise Expects Spot Ether ETPs to Register Billions in Netflows

Bitwise, a cryptocurrency-focused asset management firm, forecasts an abundance of interest in ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) for the first 18 months of their trading. In a memo sent to investors this week, Bitwise CEO Matt Hougan estimates that these ether-based spot investments will attract $15 billion during this period.

Hougan, who had explained why ether was an interesting asset for institutional investors before, stated:

That’s not a casual guess. It’s what the data suggests.

To reach these numbers, Hougan examined the relative capitalization capitalization of BTC and ETH in today’s cryptocurrency market. Hougan calculated that Bitcoin has a market capitalization of $1,266 billion (74% of the combined market), while Ether has $432 billion (26% of the combined market). Estimating that Bitcoin ETPs will register $100 billion in inflows by the end of 2025, spot ether equivalents would have to attract $35 billion in assets to achieve parity.

However, this number needs to eliminate the immediate conversion of Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust, calculated to reach $10 billion, into the market. This would put estimated inflows at $25 billion.

When comparing this number to other markets where ether ETPs have already been launched, Hougan found it was still too high. Hougan’s statistics indicate that spot ether ETPs manage to agglutinate 22% of the joint BTC-ETH inflows in European and Canadian markets. Translating these numbers to the U.S. market, spot ether ETPs would be able to reach $18 billion in inflows.

However, Hougan subtracts carry trade-related inflows from the Bitcoin ETP estimates, which involve buying spot Bitcoin ETPs and then selling Bitcoin futures contracts against that position. Using this new Bitcoin estimate, he finally arrives at the $15 billion inflow number predicted.