Despite COVID-19 crisis, one analyst says Bitcoin’s macro case has “never been more obvious”

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Both Bitcoin and the equities market have mounted a strong comeback from their lows, but there are still storm clouds brewing on the horizon for the economy and for society more broadly.

In a recent speech, Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve warned that the ongoing recession caused by the COVID-19 outbreak is one “without modern precedent.” The Bank of England echoed this line to a T, saying that the U.K. could experience its worst recession in 300 years.

Bitcoin may continue to shake off this macro backdrop, though, with BlockTower Capital writing in a recent report that the macro case for our favorite orange coin has “never been more obvious.”

Bitcoin’s macro case has never made more sense

In an extensive research note titled “Demand is Coming,” BlockTower laid out an extensive case for why “the macro case for Bitcoin has never been more obvious.”

In which @brichardson__ and I discuss:

1. The Macro Case for BTC
2. Bitcoin Mining
3. The Tokenization of People

Thanks to @skewdotcom & @BlockwareTeam for the great insights & data.https://t.co/4YO7z8komO

— Avi IS RIGHT (@AviFelman) May 18, 2020

The case the crypto fund boiled down to a handful of macro trends that accentuate that demand for BTC will increase at a dramatic clip in the coming months and years. Increased demand often correlates with increased prices. 

• There could be flaring geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China once again as the countries trade blows over COVID-19. Analyses suggested that Bitcoin was trading in tandem with gold and other safe havens as the Chinese yuan fell against the dollar in 2019.
• Due to the lockdowns, the world is becoming increasingly acclimated to everything digital. Bitcoin, a form of digital money, stands to benefit, BlockTower wrote: “With this transformation will come broader acceptance of the concept of digital money. Bitcoin, after all, is the internet’s first money.”
• Small, emerging market economies are starting to collapse in on themselves, potentially allowing Bitcoin to act as a safe haven for those in these economies. The trading firm pointed to Lebanon in particular, where they see Bitcoin becoming a “potent tool for the dissident, and a useful insurance plan for those leaving that may have to leave physical wealth behind.”
• There has been an “erosion of trust in central banking” with the introduction of lending programs for Wall Street, quantitive easing, and zero percent interest rates. Bitcoin, as a decentralized and scarce asset, stands out in a world of fiat money.

As Parker Lewis of Unchained Capital wrote in a recent essay on Bitcoin’s role in the ongoing macroeconomic crisis, which all boils down to governments and central banks at the end of the day:

“When governments and central banks can no longer create money out of thin air, it will become crystal clear that backdoor monetary inflation was always just a ruse to allocate resources for which no one was actually willing to be taxed. In common sense, there is no question. There may be debate but bitcoin is the inevitable path forward.”

Where will this macro case take the BTC price?

Although Blocktower is clearly extremely optimistic about Bitcoin’s prospects in this geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, the firm did not indicate if it has a (public) BTC price target.

It’s a different story for other analysts and investors in the space, who have been a bit more forthcoming with predictions.

Raoul Pal —  chief executive of Real Vision and a former Goldman Sachs executive — recently began to postulate that a target of $500,000 per coin in the coming five years is logical.

Like Blocktower, he explained that right now, Bitcoin’s fundamental case is clearer than it has ever been, with Pal focusing on the chance that the fiat monetary system or the financial system starts to crumble in the ongoing crisis.

Bitcoin, to him, is a replacement for these systems should they start to falter, hence the high prediction.

When I look ahead, all I see is the potential risk of the failure of our very system of money or less dramatically, out current financial architecture. […] It already is a deformed beast after the last crisis and barely functions. The only answers that make any sense are gold and bitcoin. Gold is the protection of our assets. Bitcoin is the call option in the future system,” Pal wrote in the April edition of his macro research newsletter Global Macro Investor. 

Interestingly, he’s not alone in making such optimistic comments. One of the earliest Facebook executives, Chamath Palihapitiya, suggested a BTC price of “millions” in the coming decade. The narrative he cited was extremely similar to that Pal cited.

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