Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital founder and former ally of ex-President Donald Trump predicted that more pension funds will soon include Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) in their investment portfolios.
What Happened: In an interview with CNBC, Scaramucci suggested that the State of Wisconsin's decision to invest in Bitcoin for retirement benefits could lead to other pension funds following suit.
According to new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board has invested approximately $163 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ:IBIT) and Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (NYSE:GBTC).
Scaramucci believes that institutional adoption of Bitcoin is currently underway and that the recent regulatory approval for Bitcoin has removed a significant barrier for large-scale institutions.
"Bitcoin now has the regulatory approval. And I think that was the rate-limiting step for a lot of these large-scale institutions... A lot of smart institutions are saying, 'Let me get long this thing.' before it becomes part of a total tactical allocation index," he said.
Scaramucci also emphasized that Bitcoin is still in the early stages of adoption.
"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 said.
Why It Matters: Scaramucci's recent prediction aligns with his previous bullish stance on Bitcoin.
Just a few days ago, on Benzinga's PreMarket Prep Monday, he forecasted that Bitcoin would eventually hit $150,000, attributing this to the increasing global adoption of the cryptocurrency.
He also noted that Bitcoin makes up over 30% of SkyBridge's assets and that he is more bullish on Bitcoin at $60,000 than he was when it was at $30,000 last year due to the recent ETF adoptions from Blackrock Inc. and other large financial firms.
"You only have 4.8% of the globe in Bitcoin," Scaramucci said on Monday. "That's akin to Web 1 in 1999, and I would just tell you to look at the Web 1 volatility of stocks like Amazon, eBay, etcetera back in 1999. As things are adapting and scale, and I predict Bitcoin will scale, you will see the situation where Bitcoin has a billion users, the value of that network will be exponentially larger and Bitcoin will be at $150,000."
Price Action: Bitcoin was trading at $66,888, up 0.72% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.
Photo by World Economic Forum on Flickr