Huge Traders Remain Super Bullish on Bitcoin Despite Crypto Carnage

Bitcoin BTC$89,896.07 remains way below its highs, and reasons for optimism seem scarce. But not for some of the biggest traders, who’ve retained a rosy view.

Cumberland, a Chicago-based market-making firm that buys and sells with institutions and other firms that do big transactions, recently surveyed its clients and found optimism abounds.

Though the median respondent didn’t see the pain as being fully over – reckoning that bitcoin will get as low as $16,000 in 2022 from around $23,500 currently – a large rebound is foreseen: a jump to a high of $32,000 sometime this year.

“Even in the wake of a severe sell-off, the average respondent was still high-conviction bullish,” according to the report released this week. “Even in a bear market, the direction is not surprising. After all, most of us are in crypto because we believe in bitcoin; if we didn’t have a bullish streak, we’d probably still be trading [foreign exchange].”

However, the magnitude of the anticipated rally is a surprise to Cumberland, a division of Chicago trading legend Don Wilson’s DRW, given that survey respondents only saw a 4% rally in the Nasdaq, and stocks and crypto prices have been tightly correlated.

Talk of a lengthy crypto winter has many investors fretting, so the bullishness among professionals with much at stake stands out. As with conventional markets such as stocks, though, crypto’s path does probably hinge on whatever the Federal Reserve does with U.S. interest rates. And, indeed, Cumberland’s clients took that view. “It’s very striking that the most common response for both positive and negative catalysts is movement by the Fed,” according to the report.