In its note Wedbush said while the bitcoin investment is “a side show for Tesla”, it has clearly been a good initial investment and “a trend we expect could have a ripple impact for other public companies over the next 12 to 18 months.
“We still expect less than 5 per cent of public companies will head down this route until more regulatory goal posts are put in place around the crypto market, which is clearly starting to gain more mainstream adoption in 2021 and we believe will have a seismic impact for blockchain, payments, banks, and semis in the years to come.”
Axi’s Stephen Innes said he sees Tesla’s profit “bonanza” from bitcoin to spur still wider corporate interest in the cryptocurrency.
Trading began on Thursday on the Toronto Stock Exchange in Purpose Investments’ Bitcoin ETF.
Bitcoin’s pullback to start the North American trading week was accompanied by scepticism from US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, who told a conference that she thought bitcoin was an “extremely inefficient” way to conduct monetary transactions.
However, Dr Yellen signalled an opening for digital currencies.
“It makes sense for central banks to be looking at” issuing sovereign digital currencies, Yellen said at a virtual conference hosted by the New York Times.
She said a digital version of the dollar could help address hurdles to financial inclusion in the US among low-income households.
“Too many Americans don’t have access to easy payments systems and banking accounts, and I think this is something that a digital dollar, a central bank digital currency, could help with,” she said. “It could result in faster, safer and cheaper payments, which I think are important goals.”
With Bloomberg
