A former crypto fund manager and one of the industry's largest YouTubers shares his prediction for how a 2024 bull market may play out amid the bitcoin ETF approval and coming halving (2024)

  • Bitcoin's price cycles are likely to change following the spot ETF approvals, says Ran Neuner.
  • This year's expected bull run has already begun with some investors buying up other tokens, he said.
  • He expects investors to turn their sights to an ethereum ETF this year.

A former crypto fund manager and one of the industry's largest YouTubers shares his prediction for how a 2024 bull market may play out amid the bitcoin ETF approval and coming halving (1)

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A former crypto fund manager and one of the industry's largest YouTubers shares his prediction for how a 2024 bull market may play out amid the bitcoin ETF approval and coming halving (2)

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A former crypto fund manager and one of the industry's largest YouTubers shares his prediction for how a 2024 bull market may play out amid the bitcoin ETF approval and coming halving (3)

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It's the beginning of a new era for bitcoin as spot ETFs begin trading in the US.

On Thursday, traders gained access to the first 11 ETFs that are directly tied to bitcoin's spot price after a contentious, decadelong approval process with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But this milestone also means the fun part of bitcoin is over, according to Ran Neuner, the cofounder of OnChain Capital and owner of Crypto Banter, a YouTube channel with over 703,000 subscribers.

That's because gone are the days where investors could gain abnormal returns from bitcoin because of slightly lower liquidity and information asymmetry, he said. As spot ETFs trade, Neuner believes bitcoin will become more of an institutional asset and its price action will mimic institutional flows. This means the crypto's four-year cycle that's pegged to the halving of miner rewards will be more muted; its new cycle will depend on how institutional investors view the asset, he added.

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"In all probability, they're going to start treating bitcoin as digital gold, which is the one way that institutions see bitcoin," Neuner said in an interview prior to the ETF approvals. "And then we may follow the gold cycle more than we follow the equity cycle."

But there is also a probability that it may be viewed as similar to investing in technology, especially in the beginning as it gains adoption, he added. This means it could be correlated with tech stocks, too.

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Regardless, the ETFs mean a lot more money will go into bitcoin, making its supply scarcer and sending its price higher while driving volatility down, Neuner said. While he doesn't have a set price target, he'd be surprised and disappointed if it didn't rally above $150,000 by the end of 2024, assuming there are no black swan events. In 2021, bitcoin nearly touched $69,000, an over 245% gain from its previous high of almost $20,000 in 2017. At a minimum, he expects it to surpass 2021's high by at least 50%.

This year's market cycle

The typical crypto bull cycle has historically been kicked off by bitcoin. Every four years (2024 is a fourth year), the reward for mining a bitcoin block is cut in half, and the tightened supply helps to send the price up. When investors believe they've reached peak returns on bitcoin or feel the risk-return curve is skewed against them, they shave off their profits to make riskier bets on smaller-cap cryptos by migrating to ETH followed by other large caps, and eventually small caps, Neuner said.

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Neuner pointed out that the wait for spot bitcoin ETF approvals shifted the crypto market's attention this year. Right now, crypto investors aren't the ones buying bitcoin. Instead, they're moving higher up the risk curve to lower cap cryptos, he said. For crypto investors, a spot ETF approval is a "sell-the-news" event.

"We've seen crypto cycles and we kind of understand that in a bull market, the returns are going to come from the smaller altcoins, but you just need to make sure that you get out in time," Neuner said. "Now, because we're so early in the crypto cycle — or we believe we're so early in the crypto bull cycle — I think people are starting to place their bets lower down the table."

In a July 2021 interview with Insider, he shared a breakdown of the cryptos he was betting on during that bull market. Half of his exposure was in BTC and ETH with smaller amounts in Chainlink (LINK), polkadot (DOT), and cardano (ADA). By September 2021, he told Insider he sold about 40% of his ether holdings to increase his exposure to solana (SOL).

So far, investors seem to have skipped over the ETH trade and begun investing in large-cap cryptos earlier, he said. This is evident by upward price moves that began in the final quarter of 2023 in layer-1 cryptos such as solana, up by over 130%, injective (INJ) up by over 160%, sei (SEI) up by over 200%, and celestia (TIA) up by over 500%.

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In 2022, solana took a significant hit from the collapse of FTX because the exchange was an investor in the crypto. But its network remains faster and cheaper than ethereum and therefore, it is attracting investor attention again, he said. The latter three cryptos are all part of a technology stack on Cosmos (ATOM), a layer-1 protocol that allows developers to create more that other blockchains are built on, and are interoperable.

Neuner told Insider he and his family office are invested in the above-mentioned cryptos.

But Neuner pointed out that once a bitcoin ETF is approved, all eyes will be on an ethereum ETF because the digital currency has had a similar path to bitcoin: ethereum futures ETFs are already trading and approvals for a spot ETF have been submitted. In December, the SEC delayed its decision on multiple ethereum ETFs to May 2024, while BlackRock and other firms also filed for an ETH spot ETF. This narrative will send money flows back towards ethereum, which will be the one to run up in price next, he predicted.

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A former crypto fund manager and one of the industry's largest YouTubers shares his prediction for how a 2024 bull market may play out amid the bitcoin ETF approval and coming halving (2024)
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