Apple should buy Bitcoin and turn the Wallet app into a crypto exchange: RBC

Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world thanks to the success of its iPhones, Mac computers and software. Long-standing rumors about his work on an electric car project have warmed up again recently, but at least one bank feels the company should shift its attention to something else: Bitcoin.

RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank that is part of the The Royal Bank of Canada told customers in a note today that it believes Apple is poised to take advantage of the growing interest in cryptocurrency. RBC suggests that the tech giant should create a crypto exchange in its existing Wallet service for the iPhone, and that getting into crypto would be less risky and costly than making electric cars.

“The portfolio initiative appears to be a multibillion dollar opportunity for the company (potential of well over $ 40 billion in annual revenue with limited R&D),” RBC analyst Mitch Steves wrote, according to Bloomberg.

Additionally, Steves suggests that Apple should buy and hold Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency as a reserve asset, just as electric car maker Tesla announced today. You’re here bought $ 1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, like the business intelligence company MicroStrategy, which purchased $ 250 million in August 2020 and continued to add more over the past six months.

According to Steves, tThe gains made by Apple by investing just four to five days of cash flow, or roughly $ 1 billion, would essentially cover the costs of the company developing its “crypto wallet / exchange.”

“It would send even more users to ‘Apple Exchange’,” Steves wrote, suggesting that it would also increase the price of Bitcoin in the process. Following Tesla’s announcement this morning, the price of Bitcoin has jumped around $ 5,000 today for set a new all-time high of $ 44,127, depending on CoinGecko.

MicroStrategy has seen a huge impact from its unconventional decision to purchase large amounts of Bitcoin as a reserve asset. As explained in another post today, MicroStrategy has only spent $ 1.145 billion on its Bitcoin holdings since August 2020, and it’s now worth over $ 3 billion. Additionally, the company’s stock price has skyrocketed some 667% since the company first announced its Bitcoin strategy.

Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, believes that an “avalanche of companies” will follow its model, and Tesla has largely validated the idea today. Could Apple really be one of the next companies to follow suit?

Apple has given no public indication of interest in crypto to date, but at least RBC believes it could be mutually beneficial for the tech giant and Bitcoin.