Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
It’s been a long-standing joke: “Are the sellers in the room with us?”
Well, it turns out: Yes, indeed they are.
According to JPMorgan, the sharp crypto correction last week in crypto and carrying through this week was largely self-inflicted.
In a note to clients, the bank said the sell pressure came from crypto-native investors, not institutions.
The data backs that up: While open interest on Binance and other offshore venues cratered, CME’s institutional contracts barely moved.
It’s very much a tale of two markets.
Regarding on-chain crypto, the more than $19 billion in liquidations that slammed the crypto market on Friday have tremendously impacted sentiment and prices, neither of which have yet to recover.
Glassnode shows nearly $12 billion in futures open interest evaporated overnight, the biggest single-day decline in dollar terms ever.
Yet, institutional flow looks calm.
The ETFs have seen steady inflows through the turbulence. Across the past two weeks:
CME’s Bitcoin open interest held steady, ETF outflows were minor, and Coinbase volumes even ticked up, suggesting that institutional money (smart money) mostly watched from the sidelines.
This was the crypto casino cleaning itself out, not TradFi calling it quits.
The institutions have mostly still been buying through the pain — so who has been selling?
Answer: ancient whales and 4-year cycle believers.
There’s plenty of data showing the amount of Bitcoin sold this year from those ancient whales, many of whom were up billions. They said they were going to dump their coins on Wall St., and then they did.
And then one of the biggest anecdotal takeaways from the Asia crypto conference tour last month was that many Asian whales still believe in the 4-year cycle, and fully planned on selling this year aligned with prior cycles.
While this has put us in a painful spot, there are reasons to be optimistic.
Couple those reasons along with the recent on-chain leverage flushout and you have a nice foundation to set up a healthier base for the next leg upwards — not to mention the prospective gold-to-Bitcoin rally that typically takes place when gold leads (and boy, is it leading right now).
So stay the course, bulls — this too shall pass. And we have a good shot at seeing new ATHs still here in 2025…
Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
