Traditional Finance "Finally Waking Up" to Crypto? Bitcoin's New Bull & Bear Case

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
So what's next for crypto? Let's bring in our panel to take a closer look. Joining us, Dom Kwok, the co-founder and COO of EZ-A and Gracy Chen, CEO of BitGet. Great to have you on. Gracy, as I just mentioned, we've seen Bitcoin climb a little bit more than 25% on the month. We were about 62,000 and some change. We got north of 81,000, fallen off a little bit since then.
What's the real driver behind this move? Is it institutional demand? Is it the headlines?

**Gracy Chen** (0:30)
In my opinion, Bitcoin's rally in August was mainly started before the Jackson Hole. The concerns around US debt and the dollar strengthened the demand for scarce assets such as Bitcoin and gold.
The ETF inflow did confirm that. That there were also large short squids, both accelerated the move. But I think it's mainly macroeconomics and political, you know, some of the conversations that President Trump gave right before the rally was the main reasons behind it.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:08)
And Dom, as we look at this, when we got a more hawkish Fed message at Jackson Hole, but Bitcoin has held on to quite a bit of those gains. It didn't give much back. Is that a sign that the cryptocurrency is becoming less sensitive to interest rate expectations?

**Dom Kwok** (1:24)
Definitely. I mean, I think the reaction that crypto had in general, not just Bitcoin, some of the other altcoins as well, really shows there's a much more risk on environments. And to see that still hold full effect, even when, for example, we get a hawkish Fed announcement is really cool to see. And it's very bullish for the overall trend. So once we do start to see eventually, you know, maybe not in the near term future, but in sort of, you know, the mid to near term future, when we do start to see those rates come down, we will start to see the crypto assets rally even harder. So definitely good signs to see all around. And again, you know, I think the price is being driven by institutional adoption finally, as opposed to just pure sentiment, which crypto has been largely driven by over the last couple of years.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:08)
And Gracy, you said you were cautiously optimistic, but in the notes that you sent over, you said you wouldn't call this a new bull market after just one strong month. So what do you need to see that will convince you that this is part of a much larger move to the upside?

**Gracy Chen** (2:23)
Well, the short squeeze or more sentiment around politics and macroeconomics was just the start. I mean, those short squeezes can probably start a rally, but it cannot sustain a long bull market. What matters more is, again, long-term capital inflow that the other panelists mentioned, and also, I guess, interest rate can also be a very important factor. So I would continue watching the ETF flows, liquidity and the dollar, how strong the dollar continues to be, and all these fiscal and monetary policies all together.
2026 is, I think, again, in our opinion, more of a, I call it a monkey market, rather than bull market or bear market necessarily.
Because monkey, what monkey does is it jump up and down.
Right now, Bitcoin or cryptocurrency still hold the four-year cycle. So if we were to compare 2026 to 2022, there could be more black swan events, like what happened in 2022 in November, FTX collapse, when everyone was pretty optimistic. But you know, that's the black swan. You want to draw the Bitcoin price to 16K in 2022 So right now, that's why we remain cautiously optimistic. So I wouldn't call this a new bull run, just based on this current, you know, one or two weeks of strong rally.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:04)
And Dom, I like what you said in the notes you sent over. You said, this is traditional finance finally waking up. So I was looking over some of the holder behavior in preparation for our talk. And there's some interesting divergence here. Smaller wallets appear to be distributing while the larger holders seem to be accumulating. As you look at that, is this actually bullish because we're seeing Bitcoin move into stronger hands? Or do you have concerns about seeing that retail selling as potentially an early warning sign?

**Dom Kwok** (4:33)
No, I think it's always good to see institutional money come in and hold assets like Bitcoin and some of the other old coins as well. I think we're seeing that typically happen in bigger and bigger fashion. We're seeing institutions come in and institutions typically are much more diamond handed, so to speak, than retail investors. Retail investors are much more sentimental. They're much more emotional when they trade, when they see prices go down, they typically sell and when they see prices go up, they typically firmo in and want to capture the upside when the going is good, whereas institutions typically buy and accumulates. So that's a really bullish sign not only for Bitcoin, but also other altcoins that we're seeing similar accumulation in, like XRP, like Solana, and many others. So very good to see that. We never complain about institutions buying and holding and adopting.