Bitcoin is stuck as Wall Street prints crypto’s $2T market cap. Here’s why.

According to Thielen, traders are missing the key point that BTC’s failure to move lower despite the hawkish Fed is itself a bullish signal.

“Traders are underestimating the upside risk from a less hawkish Fed, and overlooking the possibility that the four-year cycle has already bottomed,” he noted.

Other market watchers point to erratic demand for ETFs, a preferred vehicle of institutional investors, as the reason for BTC’s underperformance. These U.S.-listed funds registered an outflow of $61.53 million, snapping an equally anemic three-week streak of inflows, according to data source SoSoValue. This week, they have pulled in $626 million in investor money, the highest tally since early May, but that trend needs to hold.

“Several consecutive days of inflows will be needed to confirm a sustained recovery in institutional demand,” Vikram Subburaj, CEO of India-based FIU-registered Giottus.com, said in an email. For now, he’s watching a tight range, with support near $63,000-$63,400 and resistance between $64,500 and $66,000.

The other problem, according to leading market maker Wintermute, is that whatever ETF flow there has been may not be directionally bullish, but could instead be arbitrage.

“That ETF bid getting absorbed without moving price says the marginal buyer in spot isn’t outright long,” Wintermute noted. “Risk appetite went single-name instead, with ZEC up 10.9% on the week on DCG’s Fortitude expanding its Zcash mining footprint and HYPE adding 5% on a dead beta day. For breadth to expand, we likely need to see BTC vol off this floor first.”