After testing out digital currencies earlier this month,

independent stock research analyst Ronnie Moas on Sunday published the first two parts of his 122-page report on bitcoin and other digital currencies. "In my view, the genie is out of the bottle, and cryptocurrencies will continue to rise and take market share away from stocks, other precious metals, bonds and currencies," Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, said in the report. "I think investors should take a shot on this and hold for a few years. If you lose a few bucks, at least you took a shot," he said. "In life, you miss every shot that you do not take. It will probably be more upsetting to watch it (from the sidelines) go up another 1,000%."

Moas gave bitcoin a $5,000 price target for 2018, reflecting nearly 80 percent upside from Monday's price of about $2,800. He also expects rival digital currency ethereum to more than double in value from just under $200 to reach $400 in the next year, and another digital currency, litecoin, to double from about $40 to $80. In the next week or two, Moas said he plans to issue the third part of the 122-page report about how a fourth and much smaller digital currency could rise a few hundred percent in the near future. The stock analyst said he's bought 10 of the top 20 digital currencies by market capitalization in order to be diversified, marking the first time in 20 years he's put money into his own recommendations.

"In my view, 10-15 years from now, the charts on a few of the top 20 names will look like the Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Netflix and Google charts look today," Moas said in the report. Moas' report comes just before a possible split in bitcoin Tuesday, if some developers go ahead with a scheduled upgrade known as Bitcoin Cash. Direct owners of bitcoin will then hold two versions of the digital currency. "The market is telling you right now that we will get through this event tomorrow," Moas told CNBC in a phone interview Monday, noting bitcoin traded close to its all-time high. The digital currency hit a record $3,025 in mid-June, fell to $1,837 in mid-July, before recovering about $1,000 to trade near $2,800 on Monday, according to CoinDesk.

Back on July 5, Moas told CNBC he bought some bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin and expects bitcoin could reach $5,000 "in a few months." He subsequently published an article on Reddit outlining his views on digital currencies. Since then, institutional attention on bitcoin has only increased. Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee became the first major Wall Street strategist to publish a report about bitcoin on July 7. Less than a week later, Switzerland's financial market regulator authorized the first Swiss bank to manage bitcoinfor clients, while the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last Monday approved the first bitcoin options platform.

Last Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also issued a report and investors bulletin on initial coin offerings, or sales of new digital coins. I have little doubt that 1% of the money in cash, bonds, stocks and gold will end up in cryptocurrencies," Moas wrote in his report. Since the $80 billion cryptocurrency market right now is a 25th of 1 percent of the $200 trillion in gold, cash, stocks and bonds, Moas pointed out digital currencies will need to increase by 25 times in order to reach 1 percent of the overall capital market. If cryptocurrencies become part of asset allocation models and take 2 to 4 percent of capital markets, then the digital currencies will likely increase 100 times in value, Moas said

To be sure, Moas also laid out a host of risks for investing in digital currencies, including inherent high volatility, large-scale hacks on cryptocurrency firms and potential regulation, especially in China, that could cause prices to "collapse." In addition, Moas pointed out the lack of customer support for online digital currency products. "There is no telephone support," he said in the report. "You must go to the FAQs section and spend a long time looking for the answer to whatever question you may have — and then you may not be happy with the answer. Your only other option is to send an email to customer support which could take anywhere from one-to-seven days to get a reply."

Coinbase, a popular website for buying and selling digital currencies in the U.S., has repeatedly reported website loading delays or outages in the last few months due to high customer traffic. All that said, the stock analyst said he believes the time to buy digital currencies is now. He described in his report how investors can buy bitcoin, and why financial institutions are interested in the blockchain technology behind bitcoin and other digital currencies. "I watched from the sidelines for a few years and it felt recently as if the train is leaving the station," Moas said. "I think we are still in the first quarter of a four quarter game and that even though I missed out on significant gains (2014 – 2016), it is not too late to get in."

Chuck Reynolds

Marketing Dept
Contributor
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