Bitcoin In 2026: Stronger Than Ever Or Losing Relevance? w/ Christopher Kuiper

**Christopher Kuiper** (0:00)
But I always come back to fundamentals.
What can we actually observe fundamentally, not in the price or the noise? And every day, I see more people adopting this.

**John Gillin** (0:09)
Bitcoin is here to stay, but why do so many investors still not have any in their portfolios, and what is it going to take for them to get off zero? Hello and welcome to The Milk Road Show, the podcast that's always here to remind you that you do not have enough Bitcoin. I'm your host, John Gillin. Today is Thursday, June 11th, and today we are joined by Chris Kuiper. Chris is the Vice President of Research at Fidelity Digital Assets, where he leads the firm's research on digital assets and provides insights on the asset class to institutional investors and to self-directed investors alike. Previously, Chris built a successful career in equity research and holds a master's degree in economics. Chris is one of my favorite people to talk to you about the institutional take on Bitcoin. So if all that sounds good to you, make sure you like and subscribe, share this episode with somebody who needs to get off zero. And as a reminder, the market is chopping. It's kind of nuts right now, but our analysts have been busy at Milk Road Macro Pro. Our analysts have made over 20 trades in the last week. Some are buying the dip, some are waiting for calmer waters. But if you want to see what everybody has been doing, you can check that out for just $1 in Milk Road Pro. Get in there, you can get 7 days for just a buck. Cancel anytime, and we'd love to have you.
And if you'd like, you can join our Discord there and ask me any questions about anything you'd like. Today's episode is brought to you by Cape, the privacy-first mobile carrier and Bitget Stocks 2 with real liquidity and real dividends. Without further ado, welcome to The Milk Road Show, Chris Kuiper. How are you, sir?

**Christopher Kuiper** (1:30)
Very good. Thanks for having me on.

**John Gillin** (1:31)
Chris, I'm really excited to talk to you. Every time we have a conversation where we have you on the show, I always learn a lot. But before we dig into your recent research and reports, I'd like to get your thoughts on where Bitcoin is today. Do you think that the bear market has bottomed? Are we going to see new lows this summer? What's your outlook on Bitcoin here?

**Christopher Kuiper** (1:49)
The sentiment is probably the worst I've ever seen or experienced in my career here. So it's pretty bad. It's hard to imagine how it could go lower. But that being said, of course, things can always get worse before they get better. So certainly I'm not going to be too bold as to make a short term prediction here. What I will see though is what I will say is that all the metrics we look at, they're really all flashing the same thing, which is Bitcoin is in this very depressed deep value territory, if you will.
So meaning at least historically, when we look at these metrics, when Bitcoin was showing these levels before, these are readings at or near the bottom, and then the subsequent 6, 12, or sometimes longer 24 months later, Bitcoin has been much higher. Now again, that's just historical. These bottoming processes can take a lot of time. They can take months, quarters, maybe even a year or more. So anything can happen in the short term, but this is certainly one of the lowest readings we've gotten on both the sentiment side and just from a momentum RSI relative strength index side as well.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:51)
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**John Gillin** (3:08)
I think those two words depressed and deep value really capture a lot of both sides of the market here. I'd like to get your thoughts on why we've seen this weakness from Bitcoin, especially at a time where we've seen such strong bullish momentum, this AI-driven bull run in the equities markets. Bitcoin has sort of decoupled since October 10th. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or insights around why we've seen that in the markets and what caused it, when does it end, or just any insights on that you'd like to share.

**Christopher Kuiper** (3:36)
Well, I think one of the major reasons is what you've just said exactly. The momentum in the stock market, especially amongst some of these AI plays, chip makers, anything related to that. People want momentum. There's a lot of people that like to ride momentum. Momentum is a well-defined factor. I come from the money management world before this, and it's one of the persistent factors. It's a bit of anomaly. Almost every academic and market practitioner will tell you momentum is real. It's a thing. There's a lot of disagreement as to why it exists or why it can outperform. But it's definitely there.