Wintermute: Bitcoin's Recent Price Surge is a 'Textbook Relief Rally'

In brief

Wintermute believes recent Bitcoin and crypto price action is a clear relief rally, or short-term price recovery.

The market maker pointed to rising ETF inflows, macro easing, and a dovish Fed tone as contributing variables.

Bitcoin has jumped more than nearly 10% in the last week, but is still down nearly 50% from October's peak.

Bitcoin has jumped nearly 10% in the last week of trading, recently changing hands at $64,023 after touching a two-week high above $64,500 on Monday.

But market-making firm Wintermute says it's still “somewhat cautious,” suggesting the recent price jump is more of a relief rally than a structural shift. In other words, the firm believes this is a temporary or short-term recovery as opposed to a significant, fundamental shift in the market.

“This looks like a textbook relief rally, and it makes sense given the input,” the firm wrote in its most recent market update.

Wintermute pointed to easing macroeconomic conditions, a more dovish tone from the Federal Reserve, and improving headlines related to Ethereum and institutional adoption as a trio of variables aiding recent price action.

“That combination is enough to explain the bounce without needing a bigger story behind it,” it wrote.

Nevertheless, the firm still believes things can grind “a bit higher” from its current standing, pointing to a recent flip in the ETF inflows as a reason for hope.

Last week, Bitcoin ETFs snapped a 10-day outflow streak, bringing in more than $222 million on July 2. They backed up that performance with another day of inflows on Monday, when more than $265 million filtered in, according to data from Farside Investors.

However, Wintermute conceded that one data point doesn’t make a trend, noting that a more sustained streak of inflows would be necessary in order to believe a more structural market change has taken place.

“We'd want to see that inflow sustained over consecutive sessions before reading it as the start of a real reversal rather than a one-off, squeeze-adjacent print,” its market update says.

“Until that broader capital flow picture actually turns, this reads as relief rather than something structural,” the firm added.

Even with the latest leg up, Bitcoin remains nearly 50% off its all-time high of $126,080 set last October.