Case for Bitcoin Bottom Near $40K Is Weak as Institutions Stay Away

Case for Bitcoin Bottom Near $40K Is Weak as Institutions Stay Away

While the bitcoin options market has recently shed its bearish bias, some analysts remain unconvinced about the strength of the move owing to weak institutional demand and the cryptocurrency's sensitivity to macro factors.

"There is no sign of an institutional pullback, which is the key for a rally," said Laurent Ksiss, a crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) expert and director of CEC Capital. "A good barometer is always the asset under management and inflows into crypto exchange-traded products and ETFs. So far we have recovered only $1 billion of inflows versus $4 billion that has left these products alone in January."

The image above, from ByteTree Asset Management, shows the number of coins held by U.S. and Canadian closed-ended funds and Canadian and European exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has declined by 8,812 BTC ($377 million) since mid-December.