In an Entrepreneur magazine article, SecondMarket founder and chief executive Barry Silbert expressed his confidence that Wall Street will soon be investing in Bitcoin in hundreds of millions. Bitcoin has been getting a series of rejections from central financial institutions in China, Germany, Norway, France, and even the European Union. Moreover, former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan had dubbed Bitcoin's rise in virtual currency exchanges as a bubble. However, Silbert is seeing a very prospective future for the digital currency, courtesy of Wall Street.
"We're three to six months away from Wall Street dollars moving into Bitcoin in a big way," Silbert said, referring to his online platform that allows its users to trade private equity stocks.
Silbert in early fall launched the first vehicle for institutional investors to invest in Bitcoin without handling the virtual currency personally. Bitcoin Investment Trust is open to accredited investors only, and investment should be at a minimum of $25,000.
Referring to BIT's performance, Silbert spoke on Tuesday at a private dinner for Bitcoin enthusiasts in New York, "We launched six weeks ago and we're up to $70 million. That blows my mind. We were hoping to get to $10 million by the end of the year."
Silbert told Entrepreneur that the first wave of Wall Street investors would be banks' wealth-management arms. He claimed to have been speaking with several major banks, and also expects BIT to ba an approved product by such platforms in the first half of next year. The second wave Silbert said will be hedge funds and other institutional investors. The third wave will be Wall Street banks themselves, as Silbert said they are motivated by profit. "These banks already have large teams trading dollars and euros and yen and gold. Ultimately, Bitcoin is no different than those (as far as forex and commodities traders are concerned", he said.
Silbert added, "Once Wall Street starts putting money into Bitcoin -- we're talking about hundreds of millions, billions of dollars moving in -- it's going to have a pretty dramatic effect on the price."
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