Bitcoin’s days of back-to-back double-digit price surges are over as Wall Street traders and profit-taking whales reshape the market, according to 10x Research founder Markus Thielen.
A new kind of promoter
Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Trade Secrets podcast, Thielen said institutional traders selling call options after rallies have made bitcoin’s violent price explosions of earlier years less common.
While writing Crypto Titans, his history of the industry, he noticed that each cycle brought different people pitching crypto to investors.
Thielen said:
“Every cycle had actually different promoters, and different promoters bring in different investors.”
“Every cycle had actually different promoters, and different promoters bring in different investors.”
This time the promoters come from Wall Street, where investors trade on economic data and Federal Reserve decisions, so he expects bitcoin to jump quickly on news and then drift sideways until the next big macro event.
Who’s really buying the ETFs
Thielen estimates that market makers account for up to half of the $60 billion in net spot bitcoin ETF inflows he analyzed, based on a review of Form 13F filings.
Those firms hold ETF shares to hedge their options trades, which means the positions are not necessarily a bet on higher prices.
He summed it up:
“So in the end it was not outright buying.”
“So in the end it was not outright buying.”
Even so, he believes institutions and some sovereign wealth funds could still arrive.
The path to $90,000
Thielen still sees bitcoin reaching $90,000 by year-end, though a drop into the mid-to-high $70,000s could come first.
Bitcoin fell to about $76,100 on Friday following Binance’s $6.3 billion hack, after finishing October down 7.3%, according to Coinglass.
Comparing the current rebound with early 2023, when bitcoin rose from around $20,000 to $30,000, Thielen said:
“I think everybody sort of missed it. So everybody wants to buy again.”
“I think everybody sort of missed it. So everybody wants to buy again.”
He expects the Fed, which raised rates to a 3.75%–4% target range in September before holding last Wednesday, to hike again by December and then turn more cautious, which could help bitcoin rally toward year-end.
Ether’s value problem
Thielen expects bitcoin to outperform Ether, arguing that too much of the value from Ethereum activity flows to layer-2 networks.
Describing the network, he said:
“I look at it more as like a valuable utility, but nobody wants to pay for it.”
“I look at it more as like a valuable utility, but nobody wants to pay for it.”
