Bitcoin (BTC) Price Slumps as Peter Schiff Dismisses Claims of Growing Institutional Interest

Popular Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff dismisses claims of growing institutional interest in the maiden cryptocurrency. Schiff's challenging statement comes following the recent Bitcoin market sell-off which resulted in a 10% price decline on Friday.

Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has dismissed claims of growing institutional interest in the cryptocurrency following the recent market sell-off.

Schiff’s statement comes as data from blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain shows that the German and US governments, and defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox have moved a combined 17,788 Bitcoin to exchanges since June 19.

The German government in particular has been selling parts of its BTC holdings every day since the start of July, transferring out a substantial 3,000 BTC on Thursday.

Coupled with Mt. Gox repayments to creditors which are expected to be sold, the large amount of Bitcoin being sold by the German and US authorities has put immense selling pressure on BTC.

This drove the token’s price down from $60,097 on Thursday to as low as $53,971 on Friday.

Commenting on this event, Schiff stated in an X post on Saturday that Bitcoin’s price slump demonstrated that the institutional demand for the market leader was overestimated.

While the Bitcoin critic acknowledged that market sell-off contributed to the asset’s decline, he also highlighted the absence of a high institutional demand, which if existed, should jump at the chance to buy the massive amount of Bitcoin that has been sold.

Schiff’s comments come as Bitcoin’s institutional demand has been a subject of debate following the introduction of the Spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.

The market leader embarked on an upward trend in the first quarter of 2024 rising to a new all-time high of $73,750, a development which coincided with the rapid growth of the Spot Bitcoin ETF market which hit a $10 billion trading volume in March.

However, البعض analysts have argued that the institutional interest in Bitcoin was overblown and that the market was being driven primarily by retail traders.

This line of thought is supported by data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which showed that hedge funds and other large speculators had reduced their net long positions in Bitcoin by 21,150 contracts in the week ending March 21.

The CFTC’s Large Speculator Positions Report (LSP) revealed that the net speculative long position in Bitcoin futures decreased to 79,600 contracts, down from 100,750 contracts in the prior week.

This marks the largest reduction in Bitcoin speculative longs since December 2023, according to analysis by Arcane Research.

The report also showed that the net speculative short position in Bitcoin futures increased by 1,000 contracts to 30,000 contracts, bringing the total net speculative Bitcoin futures position to 49,600 contracts.

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