Bitcoin market is 'a little different now,' Blockstream CEO says

So, this year has been an interesting one to be sure for Bitcoin and for cryptocurrency more broadly. But perhaps it's a bit surprising that we close out the year, um, with not with big gains, considering we hit new milestones of institutional adoption and new sort of regulatory and legislative support also. So, how are you thinking about it as as we close out the year given that kind of support?

Yeah, I mean, I think uh Bitcoin is typically short-term volatile and no difference here. I think the market is a little different now. There are more institutional buyers who are, you know, slow and steady buyers. Um, so there is this uh cycle where

Bitcoin, you know, goes through bull market and bear market phases. So, I think there's a a bit of speculation that that could be the case, but there were some structural issues that caused the sell off, you know, some uh exchange issues and uh macro news and high leverage, basically. So, we're already about 15% off the the lowest it got to a few weeks back.

Um, and, you know, JP Morgan, for example, is calling for $170,000 in the next 6 to 12 months. Tom Lee from Stratefor is calling for $200,000, similar time frame. And there's a lot of institutional buying, which I think is a, it's very early stages so far.

I mean, some of those folks were calling for those kinds of price targets for the end of this year, and we haven't quite gotten there. But, I mean, broadly, would you agree with with those kinds of of numbers that you see and hear?

Well, I think it's pretty difficult to, you know, predict timing, but I think people have short memories too, right? Recall the last cycle we had a 69,000 top, uh, around this time, you know, about 40% through the cycle, and people thought that was the top, but it put in a a higher top much later in the cycle, right? So, I think the, you know, the timing where then cycle is getting overfocused.

So, if people, uh, zoom out and consider that the timing is less accurate and there are different buyers, you know, you know, the ETF buyers are quite sticky. They're they're so long-term investors. The uh, Swiss National Bank, buying Micro strategy, some of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds buying Bitcoin, some of the pension funds buying Bitcoin and a number of banks, you know, and investment companies like Fidelity calling for 1 to 5% allocation,

Bank of America two to four, uh, and Blackrock 1 to 3. They were the first ones putting out a model price target as a model uh portfolio allocation. So I think those are, you know, those are very interesting. They build comfort and support within the investor community. But those things take time to take effect, right? Because, you know, the banks have to go through trainings programs, get their sales people information. So, I think that that continues to come through in the next few years.