The analyst says Bitcoin’s biggest hurdle with investors is volatility, but he expects that concern to fade as the market matures.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said this week that Bitcoin ETFs could eventually reach three times the assets of gold ETFs, pointing to younger investors, falling volatility and stronger sales activity around BTC funds.
His view rests on a long-term shift in who owns Bitcoin and how institutions use it, rather than a claim that the cryptocurrency has already displaced gold as a store of value.
Balchunas Sees Bitcoin Closing the Gap With Gold
In a recent interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Balchunas said younger investors are more likely to grow up treating Bitcoin as a store of value, giving Bitcoin ETFs a potential advantage as those investors accumulate more capital.
“I do believe that Bitcoin ETFs will triple gold in assets,” he said.
Right now, gold is less volatile than BTC, and according to the analyst, volatility is the main concern investors report when considering the flagship cryptocurrency.
But if its volatility and correlation with other assets continue moving closer to gold, he expects larger institutions to become more comfortable using it as a store of value, a safe haven asset or an alternative holding.
Bitcoin is still viewed differently from gold, however, with Balchunas saying it has traded more like the Nasdaq 100 for years, giving it a reputation as a high-beta asset that is closely tied to stocks. He further described it as “gold as a teenager,” contrasting its roughly 17-year history with gold’s much longer record.
His argument also centered on distribution. In a follow-up post, Balchunas pointed out that Bitcoin has “way more enthusiasm and sales firepower.”
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He also noted that wholesalers who are familiar with both crypto and the habits of older investors are actively educating clients about BTC ETFs, adding that there is little comparable sales activity around gold ETFs.
The analyst later stressed that his view does not mean gold disappears.
“Gold isn’t going anywhere,” he wrote. “I just think it will be lapped by Bitcoin ETFs as a category long term.”
ETF Flows Show the Picture Is Still Mixed
The latest fund data provides a less straightforward picture. SoSoValue recorded $159.45 million in net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs on September 17, following two difficult sessions in which funds lost $295.98 million on September 16 and $450.33 million on September 15.
For the week through September 17, the ETFs had a combined $426.81 million in net outflows. Meanwhile, cumulative inflows stood at $54.73 billion, while total net assets were $96.25 billion, equal to 6.26% of Bitcoin’s market cap.
As CryptoPotato reported, the products recorded $462.73 million in net outflows across the four trading sessions through September 11. That followed a much stronger period in August, when they attracted more than $1.9 billion in one week.