And of course, as a NASDAQ listed stock with a healthy spot volume, we have derivatives options. There are stock options that trade against MicroStrategy and you can use them for risk management if you want to buy, sell, trade volatility or hedge, you’re able to do that. And those are options available to institutional investors on exchanges they understand. And those options are easily available to them with many of the other choices they have. So MicroStrategy is where we’ve created a unique investment vehicle. It’s certainly not the only appropriate investment vehicle. And there are other investment vehicles that’ll be more appropriate for different class of investors. And as we look forward to potential spot ETFs coming along, we think that’s going to actually grow the market dramatically and it’s going to be another great investment option for a different class of institutional investors that’ll be beneficial to all.
But we’re committed to our Bitcoin operating model and being a hybrid enterprise software company and Bitcoin company taking advantage of our intelligent options when they present themselves in order to provide our investors with a unique opportunity to get long Bitcoin exposure in an intelligent fashion. So with that, I think I’ll say just a few last words on the Bitcoin market outlook. First of all, there’s a lot of discussion of spot ETPs. If and when they are approved, we certainly think that they’re beneficial to the entire asset class. They will represent an on-ramp for capital on Wall Street to come into the Bitcoin ecosystem and they’ll dramatically increase the availability of Bitcoin as an asset to both retail investors as well as institutional investors, corporate investors, and trust and endowments and the like.
So, we think that there are many, many types of investors that will benefit from that product. I think that two other things that it does is it provides comfort to institutional investors, because when they see offerings from companies like BlackRock or Fidelity or Invesco that they’re familiar with, then that’s going to actually catalyze them to do research and to educate themselves. And we’ve already seen an improvement and an expansion and analytical coverage from Wall Street of the Bitcoin asset class. I think we’ll see more and more analyst coverage from traditional Wall Street banks as these ETPs make Bitcoin exposure available. And so, more coverage, means more education, means more awareness, and that results in more interest and more on-ramps will facilitate that interest.
And because Bitcoin has got a fixed supply as the demand increases, then we think that’ll be bullish for the entire asset. The second major factor we think in the market outlook is going to be the halving. The halving is coming right now. It’s forecast to be sometime in late April of 2024. Much of the organic selling demand or the organic supply available for sale of Bitcoin or natural sellers are Bitcoin miners. And after the halving, that natural supply available for sale will be cut in half, at least from the Bitcoin miners. And the Bitcoin miners are a substantial part of all the natural sellers in the market. So the halving should have a pretty dramatic material effect on the supply available for sale at the same time that the demand for the asset increases via spot Bitcoin ETPs. So we think that’s bullish for the asset class.
The third dynamic is going to be FASB’s initiative toward fair value accounting. That can only be helpful in educating the market, clarifying the asset and creating more transparency that solves problems that corporations would have if they were to take on large material amounts of Bitcoin exposure. And this is not a near term, but more of a long-term driver, but its material as a long-term driver. A fourth interesting driver in the market, which is positive, is the entire crypto regulation developments and the progression of them. As the entire crypto industry continues to be regulated, I think that’s creating more clarity and more comfort for institutional investors to be able to participate in this space. And so, I think we’ll see positive regulatory initiatives that will create more clarity and more consistency and more comfort during the coming 12 months.
I think another driver, which is material in the coming 12 months is macroeconomics. Both macroeconomic environment in the United States, as well as global macroeconomics, there is a continued global inflation and everywhere that pops up its head, its driving interest in Bitcoin and its catalyzing awareness. And I think the current macroeconomic environment with the Fed slowing down on tightening as it has, is positive. Certainly over the past year and a half with the interest rates going from almost nothing to more than 500 basis points, that’s been a headwind. And now in the current environment, I don’t think we expect similar types of macroeconomic headwinds. And just to pause on Federal Reserve activity that we’ve seen in the past two Fed announcements have been positive, I think, for the outlook for the Bitcoin asset class.
