Excessive Volatility Hindering Further Mainstream Adoption of Bitcoin, JPMorgan Says

The bank said Ethereum is also facing challenges due to declining market share in the DeFi and NFT sectors.

By Will Canny

Jan 31, 2022 at 12:07 p.m. UTC

Updated Feb 7, 2022 at 2:26 p.m. UTC

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Head of Firmwide Research

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Alex Thorn

Head of Firmwide Research

Galaxy

Hear Alex Thorn share his take on "Bitcoin and Inflation: It’s Complicated” at Consensus 2023.

Secure Your Seat

Will Canny

Will Canny is CoinDesk's finance reporter.

Alex Thorn

Head of Firmwide Research

Galaxy

Hear Alex Thorn share his take on "Bitcoin and Inflation: It’s Complicated” at Consensus 2023.

Secure Your Seat

Alex Thorn

Head of Firmwide Research

Galaxy

Hear Alex Thorn share his take on "Bitcoin and Inflation: It’s Complicated” at Consensus 2023.

Secure Your Seat

Bitcoin’s biggest challenge is its volatility and the boom and bust cycles that hinder further institutional adoption, JPMorgan said in a research report.

The bank’s fair value estimate for bitcoin (BTC) based on the volatility ratio of bitcoin to gold fell to around four times, or $38,000, analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in the note published last week.
JPMorgan said its previous forecast of the bitcoin-to-gold ratio falling to around two times now seems unrealistic. The bank sees significant headwinds for both bitcoin and ether.
The challenge for ether (ETH) is different from that for bitcoin because ether derives most of its value as a “decentralized application currency rather than a form of digital gold,” JPMorgan said.
The Ethereum blockchain is facing challenges due to declining market share in the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible-token (NFT) sectors, the bank said. During this month’s market correction, Ethereum failed to recapture market share from its main competitors, with ether prices falling by a similar magnitude compared with smaller alternative coins (altcoins), the bank added.
Similar to last May, unwinding of leveraged futures contracts played a significant role in the crypto market correction in recent weeks, the bank said, but this month’s unwinding of positions seems less severe.
Bitcoin was trading around $37,244 as of publication time.

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Will Canny

Will Canny is CoinDesk's finance reporter.

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Will Canny

Will Canny is CoinDesk's finance reporter.