Despite ongoing regulatory pressures in the crypto sector, Bitcoin (BTC) is "untouchable," and those who don't have some crypto exposure are "seriously silly," according to Bloomberg's senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone.
McGlone argued during an April 3 stream with crypto podcaster Scott Melker that, unlike other cryptocurrencies such as Ether $1,805, Bitcoin could not be killed by regulators because it is more decentralized. "There's a lot of skepticism about regulators pushing back on the entire space, and that's the key thing where Bitcoin stands out," McGlone said.
"You can't touch it, you can't kill it, and it's just unprecedented; it's untouchable."
"When you hear about all these upgrades and people doing this and people doing that to make it better, I'm like okay, that's kind of scary, can't do that to Bitcoin, that's why it's fine and impressive," McGlone added.
Recently, the crypto sector has faced a wave of crackdowns in the United States, with the U.S. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged crypto exchange Kraken for staking services before suing stablecoin issuer Paxos over Binance USD $1.00. The regulator also proposed rule changes aimed at cryptocurrency firms that act as custodians.
McGlone stated that he is still bullish on Bitcoin, but that if a recession occurs, the price will fall along with other assets.
Back in January, he warned that BTC might not see the expected surge because of challenging macroeconomic conditions and pressure from interest-rate hikes. According to McGlone, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decision to reduce daily oil output on April 2 makes a recession more likely, as do Federal Reserve interest rate hikes to combat inflation.
"We had our morning call this morning, and our economist Anna Wong said, Yeah, their base case is for the recession to start in Q3," he explained. "OPEC is assisting that, as is Fed tightening, so all assets must fall, including Bitcoin, which is the fastest horse in the race, so I'm overall, certainly relatively bullish." It's "seriously silly," according to McGlone, to risk not having some exposure to crypto or to try to obstruct its progress.
"The key thing I look at simply for Bitcoin is, if you're a money manager, why take the risk of not having some of this revolutionary asset, especially because it's so controversial that you want to have at least some in it because you don't want to look like an idiot over history," he said. "The smart guys understand; we're not going to be Blockbuster or Sears, but we're going to be a part of this technology."