Bitcoin Shines With 150% Returns In 2023, According To Matrixport

In its latest report on Bitcoin (BTC), crypto financial services platform Matrixport has declared BTC to be the best asset of 2023, outperforming the likes of the Nasdaq by 100%.

Additionally, the report, released yesterday, highlights that on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, BTC itself is only outperformed by BTC miners and crypto-related firms such as Coinbase.

Bitcoin reigns supreme

With 2023 now coming to a close, crypto analysts around the world will once again be trying to gauge the sentiment and health of the premier cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. The report from Matrixport certainly provides some key insights into the performance of Bitcoin, as well as shining some light on the Bitcoin/crypto ecosystem itself. To begin with, the report declares that “Bitcoin has been the superior asset in 2023”, noting that it has massively outperformed major financial industry players such as the Nasdaq and S&P 500.

According to the report, Bitcoin has returned 150% in the past year to investors, compared with the 53% provided by the Nasdaq. Most interestingly, the report found that listed BTC mining firms and other crypto firms such as Coinbase outperformed Bitcoin by considerable margins.

To investors, this should indicate that a diversified portfolio of listed Bitcoin mining companies such as Bitfarms and HIVE Digital could offer even greater gains than just investing in Bitcoin alone.

According to head of research at Matrixport, Markus Thielen, regression analysis could result in these stocks shooting up by 572% if BTC reaches $70,000.

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. If the value of oil goes up, it is only natural that the value of companies drilling and refining oil will appreciate too. What is somewhat surprising, is that BTC appears to have beaten out a majority of layer-1 and layer-2 cryptos, including its nearest competitor Ethereum which has seen YTD gains of 83%. Notably, Solana (SOL) has outperformed every other major token in that report.

Overall, cryptocurrencies have done pretty well considering the ongoing fallout from the FTX drama that continues to plague the market. According to data published at the beginning of December 2023 by crypto analytics firm Glassnode, YTD market capitalization performance for crypto has been “impressive”.

That said, with the numerous scandals and dramas surrounding cryptocurrencies, you would be right to question where all this Bitcoin buzz is coming from.

A very bullish Bitcoin ETF

The buzz surrounding Bitcoin can be boiled down to a few key factors. First of all, there are major events such as the Bitcoin halving in 2024, as well as historical election year trends (there are many major elections next year), as well as the potential approval of a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States.

So far, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has only approved Bitcoin Futures ETFs, which don’t track the price of Bitcoin itself, but rather the speculative price it may or may not be at some point down the road. At present, several G20 countries including Canada, Brazil, Australia, and Germany have approved Spot Bitcoin ETFs for trading.

Earlier this month Nasdaq noted the growing speculation surrounding the approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF in the United States is a major factor driving fresh capital into BTC and Bitcoin-adjacent industry players.

Experts and those ‘in the know’ estimate that the next approval window for a BTC ETF is around the start/middle of January 2024, which serves to explain the consistently positive sentiment around BTC.

Seemingly, 2024 could be yet another landmark year for Bitcoin with Matrixport highlighting in another report last month that Bitcoin has a positive year ahead, and is estimated to reach a lofty $125,000 by the end of the year.