All Hell Will Break Loose’: Abra CEO Predicts Bitcoin Price Boom Will Return This Year

Mainstream financial analysts might be fixated on Bitcoin’s so-called “death cross” and what it might mean for the flagship cryptocurrency moving forward, but Abra CEO Bill Barhydt believes that another rally is just around the corner.

Barhydt, who once designed trading systems for Goldman Sachs, told Business Insider that hedge funds and other institutions are beginning to see cryptoassets as a “huge opportunity” and that “all hell will break loose” once they begin investing in the nascent markets.

“I talk to hedge funds, high net worth individuals, even commodity speculators. They look at the volatility in the crypto markets and they see it as a huge opportunity. Once that happens, all hell will break loose,” he said. “Once the floodgates are opened, they’re opened.”

He said that institutional interest is already starting to tick up in Japan, which he said is a leading indicator of what will soon happen in the West — regardless of retail interest, which has seen a sharp decline in recent months.

“There really is zero large-scale institutional money from the west in crypto right now,” Barhydt said. “That is happening in Japan. Once a large sizable chunk of Western institutional money starts to come in — watch out.”

“We’re getting closer and closer to real clarity in the West that it’s OK putting half a percent of your assets into crypto,” he added.

And when those floodgates do open, Abra intends to help facilitate the rally.

As CCN reported, the American Express-backed firm recently overhauled its Bitcoin investing app’s native trading platform, which now lets users invest in 20 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies using smart contracts.

After depositing Bitcoin or USD into Abra’s non-custodial mobile wallet, users can execute zero-fee trades within the app for the other 69 currencies, which are structured as “stablecoin” contracts on the Bitcoin network (much like a gold ETF is based on a fiat currency such as USD). In the future, Abra intends to add deposits and withdrawals for Litecoin and Ethereum as well.