Is BTC in ‘up only’ mode after rising above $94K?
“Bitcoin does not require a strong equity rally to move higher,” YouHodler markets chief Ruslan Lienkha said
Hansel Gonzalez/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
Bitcoin’s rise to a level not seen in more than a month has many wondering when its price will get back to six digits — and what exactly it will take.
Maybe not as much as you’d think.
Bitcoin was trading around $93,700 at 1:30 pm ET — up 12% from a week ago.
The crypto market benefits from a foundation of “long-term structural growth drivers,” YouHodler markets chief Ruslan Lienkha reminded me — namely deeper integration with TradFi, improving regulatory clarity in the US, adoption via bitcoin ETFs, etc.
A quick note on the inflows into the US spot BTC funds yesterday:
Headwinds in recent months preventing a new all-time high above ~$109,000 include mixed expectations around US tariff policy, future Fed actions and the potential for a recession. That has, as you know, more broadly sent the stock market tumbling in recent weeks.
That said, Lienkha’s view is: “Bitcoin does not require a strong equity rally to move higher. Simply a stable and less volatile macro backdrop would likely be sufficient to support renewed upside momentum.”
While BTC crashed alongside equities earlier this month, it has more recently strayed from acting as a high-beta version of US tech stocks. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes alludes to this in a Tuesday blog post — and in his convo with Forward Guidance’s own Felix Jauvin.
“Now that the global community believes Trump is a madman crudely and savagely wielding the tariff weapon, any investor with US stocks and bonds is looking for something whose value is anti-establishment,” Hayes wrote in the blog post. “Physically, that’s gold. Digitally, that’s bitcoin.”
Major economies printing money to cushion the effects of declining globalization would serve as a tailwind for BTC, he added to Jauvin.
We’ve written before about how various market participants perceive bitcoin as a risk-on asset. That’s despite the asset sharing global, scarce properties similar to gold — a metal that has hit new price highs amid the latest market turbulence.
Hayes believes BTC bottomed at $74,500, adding optimistically: “Bitcoin will shed its association with said tech stocks and will rejoin gold in the ‘Up Only’ cuddle puddle.”
I’ll say it for him — that’s not investment advice.
Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:
- The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
- 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.
