Bitcoin’s trading has become ‘boring’ — but that’s not necessarily a bad thing
Representations of cryptocurrency Bitcoin are seen in this illustration, August 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Bitcoin’s lack of volatility lately isn’t a bad thing and could actually point to signs of a “bottoming out” in prices, analysts and investors told CNBC.
Digital currencies have fallen sharply since a scorching run in 2021 which saw bitcoin climb as high as $68,990. But for the past few months, bitcoin’s price has bounced stubbornly around $20,000 in a sign that volatility in the market has settled.
Last week, the cryptocurrency’s 20-day rolling volatility fell below that of the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes for the first time since 2020, according to data from crypto research firm Kaiko.
Stocks and cryptocurrencies are both down sharply this year as interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and a strengthening dollar weighed on the sector.
Bitcoin’s correlation with stocks has increased over time as more institutional investors have invested in crypto.
But bitcoin’s price has stabilized recently. And for some investors, that easing of volatility is a good sign.
“Bitcoin has essentially been range bound between 18-25K for 4 months now, which indicates consolidation and a potential bottoming out pattern, given we are seeing the Dollar index top out as well,” Vijay Ayyar, head of international at crypto exchange Luno, told CNBC in emailed comments.”
“In previous cases such as in 2015, we’ve seen BTC bottom when DXY has topped, so we could be seeing a very similar pattern play out here.”
Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo, said bitcoin’s price stability was “a strong sign that the digital assets market has matured and is becoming less fragmented.”
An end to crypto winter?
Cryptocurrencies have suffered a brutal comedown this year, losing $2 trillion in value since the height of the 2021 rally. Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital coin, is off around 70% from its November peak.
The current so-called “crypto winter” is largely the result of aggressive tightening from the Fed, which has been hiking interest rates in an effort to tame rocketing inflation. Large crypto investors with highly leveraged bets like Three Arrows Capital were floored by the pressure on prices, further accelerating the market’s drop.
However, some investors think the ice may now be beginning to thaw.
There are signs of an “accumulation phase,” according to Ayyar, when institutional investors are more willing to place bets on bitcoin given the lull in prices.
“Bitcoin being stuck in such a range does make it boring, but this is also when retail loses interest and smart money starts to accumulate,” Ayyar said.
Matteo Dante Perruccio, president of international at digital asset management firm Wave Financial, said he’s seen a “counterintuitive increase in demand of traditional institutional investors in crypto during what is a time where generally you would see interest fall off in the traditional markets.”
Financial institutions have continued taking steps into crypto despite the fall in prices and waning interest from retail investors.
Mastercard announced a service that allows banks to offer crypto trading, having previously launched a new blockchain security tool for card issuers. Visa, meanwhile, teamed up with crypto exchange FTX to offer debit cards linked to users’ trading accounts.
Goldman Sachs suggested we may be close to the end of a “particularly bearish” period in the latest cycle of crypto movements. In a note released Thursday, analysts at the bank said there were parallels with bitcoin’s trading in Nov. 2018, when prices steadied for a while before rising steadily.
“Low volatility [in Nov. 2018] was following a large bitcoin bear market,” Goldman’s analysts wrote, adding that “crypto QT” (quantitative tightening) occurred as investors poured out of stablecoins like tether, reducing liquidity. The circulating supply of USD Coin — a stablecoin that’s pegged to the U.S. dollar — has fallen $12 billion since June, while tether’s circulating supply has dropped over $14 billion since May.
Selling pressure has slowed, too, as bitcoin miners reduced their sales of the cryptocurrency, suggesting the worst may be over for the mining space. Publicly-traded bitcoin miners sold 12,000 bitcoins in June and only around 3,000 in September, according to Goldman Sachs.
Wave Financial’s Perruccio expects the second quarter of next year to be the time when crypto winter finally comes to an end.
“We’ll have seen a lot more failures in the DeFi [decentralized finance] space, a lot of the smaller players, which is absolutely necessary for the industry to evolve,” he added.
All eyes on the Fed
James Butterfill, head of research at crypto asset management firm CoinShares, said it was difficult to draw too many conclusions at this stage. However, he added, “we err on the side of greater potential for upside rather than further price falls.”
“The largest fund outflows recently have been in short-Bitcoin positions (US$15m this month, 10% of AuM), while we have seen small but uninterrupted inflows into long Bitcoin over the last 6 weeks,” Butterfill told CNBC via email.
The main thing that would lead to greater buying of bitcoin would be a signal from the Federal Reserve that it plans to ease its aggressive tightening, Butterfill said.
The Fed is expected to hike rates by 75 basis points at its meeting next week, but officials at the central bank are reportedly considering slowing the pace of future increases.
“Clients are telling us that once the Fed pivots, or is close to it, they will begin adding positions to Bitcoin,” Butterfill said. “The recent liquidations of net shorts is in sync with what we are seeing from a fund flows perspective and implies short sellers are beginning to capitulate.”
Marc Benioff is keeping an eye on Palantir.
The co-founder and CEO of sales and customer service management software company Salesforce is well aware that investors are betting big on Palantir, which offers data management software to businesses and government agencies.
“Oh my gosh. I am so inspired by that company,” Benioff told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan in a Tuesday interview at Goldman Sachs‘ Communacopia+Technology conference in San Francisco. “I mean, not just because they have 100 times, you know, multiple on their revenue, which I would love to have that too. Maybe it’ll have 1000 times on their revenue soon.”
Salesforce, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, remains 10 times larger than Palantir by revenue, with over $10 billion in revenue during the latest quarter. But Palantir is growing 48%, compared with 10% for Salesforce.
Benioff added that Palantir’s prices are “the most expensive enterprise software I’ve ever seen.”
“Maybe I’m not charging enough,” he said.
It wasn’t Benioff’s first time talking about Palantir. Last week, Benioff referenced Palantir’s “extraordinary” prices in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, saying Salesforce offers a “very competitive product at a much lower cost.”
The next day, TBPN podcast hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays asked for a response from Alex Karp, Palantir’s co-founder and CEO.
“We are very focused on value creation, and we ask to be modestly compensated for that value,” Karp said.
The companies sometimes compete for government deals, and Benioff touted a recent win over Palantir for a U.S. Army contract.
Palantir started in 2003, four years after Salesforce. But while Salesforce went public in 2004, Palantir arrived on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020.
Palantir’s market capitalization stands at $406 billion, while Salesforce is worth $231 billion. And as one of the most frequently traded stocks on Robinhood, Palantir is popular with retail investors.
Salesforce shares are down 27% this year, the worst performance in large-cap tech.
Salesforce and Palantir year to date stock chart.
Gemini Co-founders Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss attend the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, U.S., Sept. 12, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Shares of Gemini Space Station soared more than 40% on Thursday after the exchange operator raised $425 million in an initial public offering.
The stock opened at $37.01 on the Nasdaq after its IPO priced at $28. At one point, shares traded as high as $40.71.
The New York-based company priced its IPO late Thursday above this week’s expected range of $24 to $26, and an initial range of between $17 and $19. That valued the company at some $3.3 billion before trading began.
Gemini, which primarily operates as a cryptocurrency exchange, was founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and held more than $21 billion of assets on its platform as of the end of July. Per its registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gemini posted a net loss of $159 million in 2024, and in the first half of this year, it lost $283 million.
The company also offers a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, credit cards with a crypto-back rewards program and a custody service for institutions.
The Winklevoss brothers were among the earliest bitcoin investors and first bitcoin billionaires. They have long held that bitcoin is a superior store of value than gold. On Friday morning, they told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” they see its price reaching $1 million a decade from now.
In 2013, they were the first to apply to launch a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, more than 10 years before the first bitcoin ETFs would eventually be approved. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s rejection of the application, which cited risk of fraud and market manipulation, set the stage for the bitcoin ETF debate in the years to come.
Even in the early days, when bitcoin was notorious for its extreme volatility and anti-establishment roots and shunned by Wall Street, the Winklevoss brothers were outspoken about the need for smart regulation that would establish rules for the crypto-led financial revolution.
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