Fidelity CEO Sees Opportunity In Crypto Winter; Grayscale More Confident On BTC ETF Than Ever

Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson has reaffirmed her faith in crypto and Bitcoin at an event organized by CoinDesk in Austin, Texas. She believes that every crypto winter presents an opportunity.

Johnson gave advice to all the crypto investors at Consensus 2022 amid a bearish cryptocurrency market from her own experience. “I figure this is my third crypto winter. There’s been plenty of ups and downs but I see that as an opportunity,” she said Thursday.

Crypto winter is a prolonged period wherein investors witness a sustained and general drop in the price of cryptocurrencies. According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin, as of 10:28 pm ET, was valued at $29,980 and nearly 56% low from its all-time high on November 10, 2021. Almost every cryptocurrency has dropped significantly over the past few weeks.

"I was raised to be a contrarian thinker and so I have this knee-jerk reaction: If you believe that the fundamentals of a long-term case are really strong, when everybody else is dipping [out], that’s the time to double down and go extra hard into it," Johnson told CoinDesk.

Fidelity Investments is very bullish on cryptocurrencies, advising countries and even central banks to buy these blockchain-based assets. The firm's digital asset arm, Fidelity Digital Assets, has increased its manpower to expand deeper into the crypto industry.

"I feel awful about the value that is lost, but I also believe the industry in crypto has a lot more to come," Johnson said while commenting on the decline of the cumulative market capitalization of the crypto industry.

At CoinDesk's Consensus 2022, investment firms Grayscale and Bitwise said they were very optimistic about the approval of a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) this year.

Interestingly, the deadline for SEC's decision on the application by Grayscale for the conversion of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to BTC ETF is July 6 while the deadline for the Bitwise decision is June 29.

“That’s a progression that ends in a spot bitcoin ETF,” said Matt Hougan, chief investment officer for Bitwise. “So they really are making progress just not at the pace of the crypto community. But it’s wrong to see them as just [holding things up]," he added.

Grayscale recently hired Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who served as the solicitor general from 2011 to 2016 under the Obama administration, to strengthen its legal team, as it continues to push for the approval of its request.