Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | jk
Amid Bitcoin's price halving from its all-time high and geopolitical clouds looming over global markets, is institutional capital retreating or quietly accumulating? On March 24, Odaily Planet Daily interviewed Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise Asset Management, in New York.
Bitwise currently manages approximately $15 billion in assets, making it the world's largest provider of crypto index funds and one of the major issuers of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana ETFs. In this interview, he shared the core drivers for Bitcoin's price in 2026, specific predictions for the year-end price, discussed the ongoing "great migration of holdings" between retail and institutional investors, and the role of Asian markets in the global crypto landscape.
Below is the full interview:
Odaily: Today we are at the DAS summit in New York, and we are honored to have Ryan from Bitwise with us. Before we begin, could you briefly introduce yourself to our Asian audience?
Ryan: Certainly. I'm Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise Asset Management. We are a global crypto asset management company primarily serving institutional investors with public and private funds, as well as staking solutions. We currently manage around $15 billion in assets, with operations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. We are one of the largest issuers in the Solana ETF, Bitcoin ETF, and Ethereum ETF space, and we also manage various index funds. We operate the world's largest cryptocurrency index fund.
Odaily: What are the biggest factors influencing Bitcoin's price in 2026, and could you rank them and assign approximate weight percentages? For example, inflows and outflows of structured products from U.S. traditional financial institutions, statements and policies from Trump and his family, awakening and selling by long-term large holders, survival pressure on miners, and the aftermath of past hacking incidents.
Ryan: The biggest long-term driver of Bitcoin's price is institutional adoption. The reason is that for the past fifteen years, most global institutional investors have been unable to access Bitcoin or other crypto assets. With the launch of U.S. Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, and now Ethereum, Solana, and other ETF products, we see institutional investors starting to catch up with Bitcoin investment. But this doesn't mean those allocations have truly begun: in fact, many investors we've spoken with, whether in the U.S., Europe, or Asia, have not yet started investing in Bitcoin. So I believe the biggest driver is the pace at which institutional investors begin large-scale allocations to Bitcoin. I think this has started happening in 2026, and more progress will be made in the second half of 2026, which will be a short-term and long-term driver, driven by demand from those institutional investors who haven't yet entered.
Odaily: Can you talk about the weights specifically?
Ryan: This is indeed an interesting topic. Investors who started allocating with us a few years ago began with about 1%, and today most clients have around 5% allocated to crypto assets. The most interesting thing is that those starting initial allocations now are not beginning at 1% but at 2% to 3%, while many long-term clients we've worked with are already at around 5%. So I'd say typical allocations for new investors are around 2%, and for existing investors with crypto exposure, it's about 5%. But when you consider the wealth controlled by global institutional investors, this number is substantial—1% to 2% to 5% of $100 trillion in wealth already exceeds Bitcoin's total market cap. That's why institutional allocation will ultimately dominate Bitcoin's price in the long run, and why it's such an important factor.
Odaily: Could Bitcoin experience significant further drops? Could the current level be the bottom of this cycle?
Ryan: Our view is that we are closer to Bitcoin's bottom, and the downside is not as significant anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin trades sideways for a few more months, as macro factors are really dominating now—conflicts in the Middle East, many things happening in South America, no one can say for sure what will happen in Cuba in the short term, and we saw the situation in Venezuela earlier this year. So there's a lot of macro and geopolitical uncertainty, which I think is putting all risk assets, all financial assets, under pressure.
Once macro uncertainty stabilizes and geopolitical uncertainty stabilizes, I think we'll see Bitcoin and other crypto assets truly start to accelerate upward. But I do believe Bitcoin and the crypto market will largely trade sideways in the coming months. In the second half of the year, we believe we'll see significant institutional inflows through ETFs, pushing prices higher and ending the year above the starting price, meaning Bitcoin will be around the $95,000 range by year-end, which is about a 40% increase from today's price. We believe we are in a crypto bear market that has lasted about a year, and our judgment is that the year will end with gains, and 2027 will be a very positive year.
Odaily: From last year's ATH to this year's price halving, who do you think is accumulating, and who is reducing their positions?
Ryan: What we're observing is a shift from retail to institutional investors, a one-time shift that is having a profound impact on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, as institutional investors enter through ETFs and other funds, and because we see increasingly clear regulatory environments in the U.S. and abroad, giving institutional investors more confidence in making allocation decisions.
At the same time, retail investors have been through many cycles of crypto booms and busts. Those early investors who entered when Bitcoin was $1, $10, $100, watched it rise to $125,000, and then fall back to $70,000, are now ready to take some chips off the table. This is actually very similar to what happens when a private company finally goes public: early investors finally get their IPO and are ready to cash out, and then new shareholders come in to participate in the company's equity. I think this is exactly what's happening in the crypto market now: early investors, predominantly retail, are transferring their holdings to long-term oriented, systematically operating institutional investors. They are not looking at one to two to three years; they are looking at five, ten, twenty years.
To summarize: currently, retail is selling, and institutions are buying, and this shift is net positive for the crypto market's dynamics because institutional investors are less behaviorally biased, more systematic, and more long-term focused.
Odaily: In the current context of sudden global changes, BTC has disappointed some investors' safe-haven expectations. Compared to traditional assets like gold, silver, and oil, why should people still believe in Bitcoin?
Ryan: I think Bitcoin's long-term prospects have never been stronger. The world's largest financial institutions are all moving towards Bitcoin. We talk to investors every day, from financial advisors to family offices, to hedge funds, endowments, pensions, and even sovereign wealth funds, all researching crypto assets and Bitcoin. I think these are journeys that take many years to complete, and it would be too short-sighted to expect Bitcoin to complete the transition from a niche asset to a mature global asset in just fifteen years.
What Bitcoin brings to an investment portfolio is the same as what gold, oil, and other commodities bring: significant diversification benefits, with low correlation to other asset classes. If you look at Bitcoin's role in a portfolio (assuming you add 5% Bitcoin to a traditional stock, bond, and commodity portfolio) it improves risk-adjusted returns because it has almost no correlation with other assets and has very strong risk-return characteristics over the long term. But investing in crypto assets must be long-term, removing emotional biases, only then can you truly start to see the value of crypto assets in a portfolio.
Odaily: Is Bitwise currently operating in Asia? What are the main activities?
Ryan: Yes, we have operations in Asia. I personally have been to Singapore several times over the past few years. Our institutional partnership team has also been to Hong Kong, Singapore, and other Asian markets. We have people stationed locally, always available to meet with banks, clients, family offices, and various institutions to help them gain exposure to crypto assets through private funds, SMAs, public funds, staking products, and more.
Speaking of staking, we recently expanded significantly into Asia through the acquisition of Chorus One. Chorus One is one of the world's largest staking service providers. We see a lot of interest and demand in Asia, especially from many family offices proactively contacting us for exposure; many banks also contact us, wanting to understand how their wealth management and private banking clients can access crypto assets. We are very excited about the growth prospects and have a team stationed locally. Friends interested are welcome to contact us anytime.
Odaily: Are there any notable differences between Asia and other regions that you can share?
Ryan: The differences are significant. The U.S., Europe, and Asia are three very different markets in terms of how they view crypto assets.
U.S. institutional investors have been lagging in crypto assets because the U.S. has been very adversarial from a regulatory perspective towards crypto assets. The previous administration from 2020 to 2024, from the White House to various regulatory agencies, actively suppressed the crypto industry at every turn. We now see that has changed. This means institutional investors were delayed for many, many years because they were worried about touching assets that the government might be trying to eliminate through regulatory means.
Europe is slightly different, although European institutional investors have been slower to adopt crypto assets than Asia.
In Asia, we see a lot of enthusiasm for participation, and I think Asia is actually more forward-looking in adopting and investing in this technology than is recognized. This is also part of the reason why we find expanding into this market so exciting and attractive.
