Bitcoin 's fall below $100,000, its lowest level since June, has sparked fears that the worst is yet to come, another so-called crypto winter (a prolonged bear market in cryptocurrencies) that the market wrestles with every time digital currencies sell off hard in a short period of time.
But Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says that while the retail investor is in "max desperation" mode, he sees that as a reason to bet that a bottoming in crypto prices may materialize sooner rather than later. With Wall Street institutional investor and financial advisor support for bitcoin, and growth in crypto ETFs, he is even willing to go out on a limb and say that amid the heavy selling a new record high for bitcoin before the end of the year isn't unreasonable.
"It's almost a tale of two markets," he said on CNBC's "Crypto World" on Tuesday. "Crypto retail is in max desperation. We've seen leverage blowouts. ... the market for sort of crypto native retail is just more depressed than I've ever seen it," he said.
But Hougan believes more crypto trading will continue to shift into an institutionally driven market, "and interestingly, that market is still bullish," he said.
"When I go out and speak to institutions or financial advisors, they're still excited to allocate to an asset class that if you pan back and look over the course of a year, is still delivering very strong returns. So my view of the market is we have to get through this retail flush out. We have to hit bottom from a sentiment perspective. I think we're very close to that," he added.