Bitcoin Surges Above $40k After Latest JPM Hitpiece

Bitcoin prices are up over 30% from last week’s lows, breaking above $40,000 for the first time in three weeks following headlines from Elon Musk (flip-flopping to a supportive stance), MicroStrategy’s successful launch of their upsized $500 bond offering (to be used to buy bitcoin), and the Dutch finance minister dissing advisors who demanded bitcoin be banned.

Source: Bloomberg

We have seen this level of ‘cheapness’ for bitcoin before…

Source

Ethereum is underperforming notably (but rising still), pushing the ETH/BTC ratio back to key support…

Source: Bloomberg

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this resurgence is the fact that JPMorgan’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou issued yet another bearish hitpiece on bitcoin based on the fact that BTC futures are no longer in contango

The shift in Bitcoin futures into backwardation is a bearish signal

The past month’s correction in crypto markets saw bitcoin futures shifting into backwardation for the first time since 2018.

This is shown in Figure 11 and Figure 12, which show the 21-day rolling average of the 2nd CME Bitcoin and Ethereum futures spread over spot since the beginning of 2018.

This is an unusual development and a reflection of how weak Bitcoin demand is at the moment from institutional investors that tend to use regulated CME futures contracts to gain exposure to Bitcoin.

Finally, we also heard this morning from infamous trader Paul Tudor Jones (PTJ), who sang the praises of bitcoin as a hedge against these “bat shit crazy” times.