Bitcoin Unlikely to Deliver 500x Returns, Grayscale Chairman Says – But These 2 Privacy Tokens Could Outperform

In a conversation with ProCap’s Anthony Pompliano, Barry Silbert said he remains bullish on Bitcoin but does not expect 500x returns from current levels.

• According to Barry Silbert, Bitcoin would need a collapse in the U.S. dollar to generate 500-fold gains.
• Silbert believes 5% to 10% of Bitcoin’s value could shift into privacy-focused tokens like ZEC and TAO.
• TAO bucked the broader market decline on Thursday night, up 4.6% in the last 24 hours, while Bitcoin’s price fell 1.5% to around $66,500.

Grayscale chairman Barry Silbert said he remains “incredibly bullish” on Bitcoin, but argued that the largest cryptocurrency is unlikely to deliver the kind of exponential returns that are likely to come from privacy-focused projects like Bittensor (TAO) and ZCash (ZEC).

“I am incredibly bullish about Bitcoin as a core part of a diversified portfolio, but I like to invest in projects that are transformative and have 100, 500, 1,000x type return opportunities,” Silbert said at the Bitcoin Investor Week conference in New York on Wednesday.

According to him, unless the U.S. dollar collapses entirely, Bitcoin is unlikely to appreciate 500-fold from current levels, leaving other tokens with more room to run. “I think Zcash can go up 500x. I think a Bittensor can go up 500x,” he said.

Bittensor Rises Despite Bitcoin Decline

TAO was among the top trending tokens on Stocktwits at the time of writing. Bittensor’s price bucked the broader market drawdown, up 4.6% in the last 24 hours to around $156. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around TAO moved higher within ‘bullish’ territory over the past day while chatter remained at ‘extremely high’ levels.

One retail user on the platform said that Bittensor was one of the "most undervalued" cryptocurrencies in the market right now.

Another said that the tokenomics behind the cryptocurrency put it among the top three altcoins in the market.

ZEC’s price, on the other hand, fell 3.7% in the last 24 hours to around $233.65 as the overall crypto market capitalization edged 0.9% lower with Bitcoin’s (BTC) 1.5% drop to around $66,500. Retail sentiment around ZEC on Stocktwits improved to ‘bearish’ from ‘extremely bearish’ territory over the past day, but chatter remained at ‘low’ levels.

Grayscale’s Zcash Strategy And ETF Plans

According to Silbert, Grayscale’s bet is that between 5% and 10% of Bitcoin will find its way into privacy-focused tokens. He positioned privacy-focused assets as both an opportunity and a hedge. “Privacy is my jam right now,” he said.

While Silbert said he does not believe quantum computing poses a meaningful threat to Bitcoin’s cryptography, he described Zcash as a useful safeguard in scenarios where privacy concerns intensify. “Zcash is a great hedge,” he said, echoing remarks made by other key opinion leaders like American investor and entrepreneur Naval Ravikant late last year.

The asset manager already backs Zcash and offers the Grayscale Zcash Trust, a public fund launched in 2017. In November last year, the firm announced it was looking to convert that vehicle into an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

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