Guggenheim CIO Says Institutional Demand Not There to Sustain Bitcoin Above $30K

Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of the multi-billion dollar investment firm Guggenheim Partners, believes bitcoin may struggle to stay above $30,000.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday, Minerd said he doesn't think bitcoin's institutional investor base is "big enough" or "deep enough" to justify its current valuation. The comments come weeks after he publicly declared bitcoin's price should be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Right now, the reality of the institutional demand that would support a $35,000 price or even a $30,000 price is just not there,” he said.

Demand from institutional investors is said to have been the cause for the top cryptocurrency's astronomical rise in recent months, as the likes of Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller and MicroStrategy said they had invested.

See also: Guggenheim CIO Says Bitcoin ‘Should Be Worth’ $400,000

Recently, a JPMorgan analyst said a bearish outlook could be triggered if bitcoin failed to claw its way back over $40,000, leading to steeper losses in the mid-term.

Starting in mid-December, the price of bitcoin soared 110% from $20,000 to $42,000 over a two-week period. Since Jan. 9, 2021, bitcoin's price has fallen 25% and is changing hands for around $30,960 at press time.