If you look closely at the chart you will find that we are actually at the take off phase.
Why?
Because that is the section where the Institutional Investors come in,
and we have had exactly that recently with the first Bitcoin Hedge Fund and the relaunch of Tradehill.
No, now is not the time for 99.99% of institutional investors. Do you know anything about institutional investors and their typical risk appetites?? BTC is exactly the type of investment in which they would never invest. The systematic risk is ridiculous (Mt. Gox, DDoS induced panics, or worse, etc). The liquidity is too low to even register on their radars and they typically do not chase performance. And, quite frankly, money managers in the space would never be fully sold on the concept. No, institutional investors are the most risk averse investors out there, normally seeking only the most stable and consistent returns.
Tradehill and the tiny Malta based hedge fund are using the term 'institutional investors' to add legitimacy to their model. Small hedge funds always target HNWIs and 'institutional investors' in their marketing materials because it sounds good even though many rarely get an institutional client. Selling a fund to institutions is no easy task even when dealing with assets and asset classes that have long histories. They typically only invest with managers who have extensive track records (many, many years) or in assets that have been around for awhile.
The Malta fund is simply a vehicle (and a tiny one, at that) that it is not actively managed and is non-discretionary. They do not have a US based feeder and cannot accept HNWIs from the US. Tradehill has a $10K minimum, which hardly sounds like it's truly directed at institutional clients who typically don't even look at investments that can't handle at least $5 - $10MM (in a single subscription). And the way BTC is so closely held, relatively low volume makes big waves. I like that Tradehill is trying to address this with dark pools, but I am not convinced they have the ability to sell it to 99.99% of institutional investors.