According to John D’Agostino of Coinbase Institutional at CNBC, Bitcoin (BTC)’s breakout to $93,000 is driven by deeply burdened institutions, not by retail exchange transaction funds (ETFs).
The rally began in early April, with institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds quietly building up BTC in a “patient capital pool,” while retail investors were still pulling capital from the Spot ETF.
“There was a stack of institutions, sovereignty and patient capital,” he said. “There were retailers out via ETFs, so you have to ask yourself, what does the institution know?”
That institutional belief is now formal. Earlier this week, Strike CEOs Jack Mullers and Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brandon Lutnick announced Twenty One Capital, a new Bitcoin investment company backed by Tether, Bitfinex and Softbank.
The company will be launched at over 42,000 BTC and will be released under the ticker “XXI” after integrating with Cantor Equity Partners ($200 million SPAC).
D’Agostino has a three-part paper on why this is happening. The first is derailing. Sovereignty and institutions reduce US dollar exposure as trade weakens. Second, decoupling from Tech: Bitcoin emits its nvidia-adjacent identity. Third, hedge basket theory: Bitcoin ranks among the top five inflation hedge models used by veteran commodity traders.
“Bitcoin is once again exchanging core properties that resemble gold. You have the rarity, immutability, portability of non-Jone’s assets,” he continued. “So people who believe in Bitcoin are exchanging the ways they want to exchange it.”
Meanwhile, major altcoins such as Ether (ETH), Solana’s Sol and Cardano’s ADA have yet to make similar technical moves. Coindesk 20 (CD20), the world’s largest measure of digital assets’ performance, fell 3% last month and BTC rose 7%.
This recent price movement may have boosted retail interest in BTC ETFs. SOSOVALUE data exceeded $900 million for ETFs for two consecutive days, exceeding $900 million on Wednesday, with ETF inflows exceeding $2.2 billion from April 21st to 23rd. This month, Bitcoin ETFs saw net leaks for nine days, totaling around $12.1 billion.