Bitcoin Price Is Languishing. What Could Shake Crypto From Its Lull—and When.

The price of Bitcoin has traded flat over the past 24 hours at $29,333. The largest digital asset is languishing below the psychologically important $30,000 level, which had provided support for Bitcoin for months before a slide lower in late July.

Unlike the stock market, where the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
and
S&P 500
 have continued to provide excitement to investors, cryptos look, well, boring. Bitcoin is currently experiencing its lowest volatility on record, based on multiple metrics, in a trend that is beginning to unnerve some market participants.

“The market remains dull looking for the next big catalyst,” analysts led by Gautam Chhugani at Bernstein wrote in a note Monday.

What could that catalyst be? Ultimately, a significant and sustainable move higher—what Bernstein calls “a new crypto cycle”—will require new sources of capital. Chhugani’s team is looking at four major sources as possibilities.

The first is a supply of new stablecoins, which are cryptos pegged to assets like the dollar—such as Tether, USD Coin, or
PayPal’s
(ticker: PYPL) recently-announced PYUSD—that provide the backbone of liquidity in crypto trading. Stablecoins remain an area of nascent but relatively promising regulation, and Bernstein sees it as likely that the U.S. will create legal clarity for this type of token as a matter of national priority, extending dollar dominance into the digital economy.

“As the market turns into a more regulated, on-shore stablecoin market, we expect new demand,” Chhugani said. “We expect close to $2.8 trillion of stablecoin growth to allocate towards digital assets over the next five years.” The market capitalization of digital assets is currently about $1.2 trillion—so that estimate is for massive growth.

The tokenization of traditional assets is another possible source of new money flowing into the crypto space, defined by digital assets broadly. Bernstein sees $2 trillion of traditional assets being tokenized across the next five years, which should provide further on-ramps into the crypto economy.

“Although traditional asset tokenization is on a longer regulatory time horizon, money market T-bills and short term bond tokenisation is already underway,” Chhugani said.

Growth could also come from the heart of crypto itself, where Bernstein sees significant opportunities in the likes of “layer-2” blockchains, built atop other networks like Ethereum. Tokenizing new market infrastructure has historically been a boon to future scalability and new user adoption, the analysts noted.

“Native crypto tokenisation is a capital multiplier for crypto … while many tokens fail, a few create valuable infrastructure and capital,” Chhugani said.

Then, of course, there is the source of capital that has at times looked like crypto’s golden goose. Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have the potential to usher retail and institutional investors en masse into funds that own crypto itself, as opposed to regulated derivatives like futures. Bitcoin got a boost in June when BlackRock (BLK) filed for such a fund, but the biggest tailwind is only likely to come if the Securities and Exchange Commission approves the ETFs and investors flock in.

“We expect a Spot Bitcoin ETF market to be sizable—around 10% of Bitcoin market cap range in the medium term 2-3 years,” Chhugani said. “Crypto ETFs will gain from strong brand marketing push by leading global asset managers and distribution push from retail brokers and financial advisors.”

As for when these catalysts could come, it’s anyone’s guess—but likely even the first one could be weeks, if not months away. Investors are bracing for a decision from regulators over a spate of newly-filed spot Bitcoin ETFs, including from BlackRock, but the SEC just delayed a decision on yet another one. Betting on the timescale of Congressional rulemaking on crypto has proved to be an equally fruitless pursuit.

Beyond Bitcoin,
Ether
—the second-largest crypto—was down 0.2% at $1,840. Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, also fell, with
Cardano
slipping less than 1% and
Polygon
dropping more than 1%. Memecoins also were in the red, with
Dogecoin
down 1% and
Shiba Inu
shedding 4%.

Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com