Matt Hougan (맷 호건), chief investment officer at Bitwise, forecast bitcoin will trade at a much higher level than now by year-end.

U.Today, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Aug. 10 that Hougan said the market has recently become less sensitive to bad news and that institutional inclusion of bitcoin is continuing to increase.

Hougan pointed to a lack of reaction to negative news as a signal the market is bottoming. "Bad news is no longer moving the market," he said. "Sellers are gone, and the fact that bad news cannot move the market means a bottom is approaching." He judged that additional downside pressure has weakened as bitcoin has not been significantly shaken by negative news recently.

He also cited rising institutional demand as a basis for a bullish outlook. Hougan said that even applying a benchmark of including bitcoin at a 1 percent weighting in traditional portfolios, actual institutional exposure had risen to about 4 to 5 percent. He argued institutions are expanding allocations beyond a simple trial stage.

On-chain indicators are also tilting toward large holders. Santiment, a blockchain analytics platform, said the number of wallets holding more than 10,000 bitcoin rebounded to the highest level in six months. There are currently 90 wallets with more than 10,000 bitcoin, up a net 6 wallets over the past eight weeks. That is an increase of 7.1 percent.

By contrast, small wallets have been losing their share of bitcoin supply since August began. Santiment pointed to recent Coldcard hacking and concerns about delays surrounding the Clarity Act as one factor weighing on retail investor sentiment. As a result, bitcoin supply is increasingly shifting toward large holders.

Some market participants are also expecting a technical rebound. Cryptocurrency trader DonAlt said on X, formerly Twitter, that "it feels like bitcoin is ahead of a large rise" and argued that the current situation does not require a major push to break above resistance. He sees bitcoin potentially moving quickly to the next major price zone if it breaks through the current range.

Still, the market outlook is not skewed in one direction. Veteran trader Peter Brandt maintained a more cautious stance. "I haven't entered a price bet yet, but if I had to bet, I would bet on the downside," he said. Brandt cited a potential head-and-shoulders pattern formed between April and June.

Views on bitcoin remain divided. Rising institutional allocations, an increase in whale wallets and reduced sensitivity to bad news are being cited as reasons for a bullish case, but some traders are still leaving room for a decline. Bitcoin's direction is expected to be tested again depending on whether accumulation by large holders continues and whether it actually breaks through the current resistance zone.

The market has yet to realized that crypto tokenomics have gotten real. We're in the fundamental era of crypto. https://t.co/F0bZGklq7g