Institutional investors dump Bitcoin for gold, JPMorgan analysts say

Amid Bitcoin touching five-month lows near $30,000, JPMorgan Chase analysts suggested that large institutional investors are now dumping Bitcoin (BTC) in favor of gold.

In its Tuesday note to clients, JPMorgan suggested that institutional investors are going back to gold, reversing a major bullish cryptocurrency market action that drove Bitcoin's price above $64,000 in mid-April.

Citing open interest data in Bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the American megabank said that BTC futures now saw the first biggest decline since the bull market that started in late 2020:

“The bitcoin flow picture continues to deteriorate and is pointing to continued retrenchment by institutional investors. Over the past month, bitcoin futures markets experienced their steepest and more sustained liquidation since the bitcoin ascent started last October.”

Despite pointing out the latest trend reversal of gold over Bitcoin, JPMorgan still maintains its previous forecast that Bitcoin is on track to hit $140,000 in the long term. “This $140k price should be thought of as a long-term theoretical target assuming a convergence of bitcoin volatility to that of gold and an equalization of bitcoin allocations to that of gold in investor portfolios,” the new investor note reads.

According to JPMorgan, the current fair value for Bitcoin based on a volatility ratio of Bitcoin to gold would be one-quarter of $140,000, or $35,000.

In January, JPMorgan analysts forecast that Bitcoin could potentially evolve into a compelling alternative to gold and hit $146,000 over the long term. “A convergence in volatilities between Bitcoin and gold is unlikely to happen quickly and is in our mind a multiyear process,” JPMorgan noted.

JPMorgan’s remarks come amid Bitcoin experiencing one of its wildest historic crushes in a day, falling from an intraday high of above $43,000 to below the $32,000 price mark. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has somewhat rebounded since then, trading at $37,137 at the time of writing, down around 16% over the past 24 hours. With a continued bloodbath on the market, BTC is still up nearly 300% over the past year, now trading at levels of mid-January.