Skybridge Capital co-founder Anthony Scarmucci believes new entrants to Bitcoin are still early, with institutional adoption of the asset only just ramping up.
Anthony Scaramucci On Institutional Bitcoin Investment
During an interview with CNBC on Thursday, the investor said that institutional adoption is “happening now,” and that he expects more pension funds to reveal soon that they have allocations to BTC.
“Bitcoin now has the regulatory approval – that was the rate-limiting step for a lot of these large-scale institutions,” Scaramucci explained. “Just remember, if you’re not long Bitcoin, then you’re possibly short Bitcoin.”
Leading up to May 15, nearly 1000 large investors with over $100 million in assets disclosed owning at least one of the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs in their securities portfolios. One of those investors included the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), which disclosed a $162 million allocation to the ETFs this week.
According to Scaramucci, institutions are dipping their toes into BTC before it becomes part of a “total tactical asset allocation index.”
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan backed this view on Tuesday, predicting that institutions could begin to devote between 1% and 5% of their portfolios to BTC as they tentatively expose client funds to the asset.
How High Can Bitcoin Go?
When asked why Bitcoin would attract such widespread adoption, Scaramucci said he was in the “digital gold category” – a subset of investors who see the asset’s primary use case as a store of value rather than a medium of exchange. MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor falls into this camp, having previously called Bitcoin’s use case as currency “a distraction.”
“Sometimes when you’re early you get a lot of bumps and scrapes, but I think it pays to be early in Bitcoin, and I think we’re still early in Bitcoin,” he concluded.
Earlier this year, Scaramucci predicted that Bitcoin could reach $170,000 per coin by the end of 2025.