{"id":7910,"date":"2025-10-24T18:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/bitcoin-bull-run-hasnt-died-its-evolving-says-galaxy-research-head\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T18:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:13:09","slug":"bitcoin-bull-run-hasnt-died-its-evolving-says-galaxy-research-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/bitcoin-bull-run-hasnt-died-its-evolving-says-galaxy-research-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Bull Run Hasn\u2019t Died\u2014It\u2019s Evolving, Says Galaxy Research Head"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin\u2019s grinding tape, tamed volatility and repeated, incremental all-time highs are not symptoms of a failed cycle but evidence of a market changing hands and changing character, according to Alex Thorn, Galaxy\u2019s head of firmwide research in an interview released October 23.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin Bull Run Gone Quiet: Here’s Why<\/h2>\n

The researcher argues that the driver capping bitcoin\u2019s near-term upside is exogenous\u2014US\u2013China tariff risk\u2014rather than any structural deterioration in the asset\u2019s fundamentals or adoption. \u201cI don\u2019t yet think it\u2019s more existential than that for the bull market,\u201d he said, describing the current price action as \u201csort of crab,\u201d with the market \u201cstill\u201d climbing a wall of worry.<\/p>\n

The price discussion hinged on two linked observations. First, bitcoin is not trading like gold yet because \u201cmarkets move on the margins,\u201d and marginal flows still treat BTC as risk. Second, those margins are shifting, with passive, long-term allocators steadily absorbing distribution from older cohorts. \u201cSignificant distribution from old hands to new hands\u201d has created resistance, he said, but that process is \u201chealthy,\u201d widening ownership and maturing the market. He framed a psychological and structural line of demarcation at six figures: \u201cMaybe we delineate there the pre-$100K bitcoin world versus the post-$100K bitcoin world. I think it\u2019s going to look a lot different.\u201d<\/p>\n

He contends gold\u2019s behavior helps explain the present inter-asset divergence. \u201cThis still is the debasement trade\u2026and it\u2019s the anti-US government trade,\u201d he said, noting that recent gold strength has been \u201call offshore,\u201d with bids arriving \u201cduring European and Asian hours,\u201d consistent with \u201cforeign central banks and large\u2026sovereign wealth funds\u201d diversifying away from US exposure.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the bitcoin price is pinned to risk appetite at the edges of the market. That said, he expects the asset to converge toward a gold-like profile as ownership migrates to institutions: \u201cBlackRock\u2019s chilling the digital gold narrative\u2026Fidelity, this is how they talk about it,\u201d he said, adding that as more supply moves into the hands of registered investment advisors and passive vehicles, BTC \u201cwill\u2026trade a lot more like a risk-off, non-sovereign scarcity hedge asset.\u201d<\/p>\n

The near-term overhang, in his view, is the tariff scare that followed statements on October 10 about potential 100% levies on China, which \u201ccaused\u201d a leverage washout and stalled a strong October. \u201cQuite simply an abatement of the tariff war between the US and China\u2026would sort of set us right back on course in risk markets,\u201d he said, anticipating a compromise rather than a \u201cprotracted bloody trade war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thorn also downplayed the next Federal Reserve meeting as a catalyst for bitcoin\u2019s direction, while acknowledging that with official economic data delayed, the Fed\u2019s own proprietary datasets could make its communication unusually market-relevant: \u201cThey\u2019re going to have data. We don\u2019t have data, but they\u2019ll share the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galaxy Lowers EOY Bitcoin Price Prediction<\/h2>\n

Against that backdrop, he marked down\u2014but did not abandon\u2014his year-end targets. \u201cAt the beginning of the year, I was calling for $150,000 and then $185,000 in Q4\u2026 I am going to materially draw down that prediction to maybe like $130,000 by EOY,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Thorn described 2025\u2019s path as a slow, volatile stair-step higher\u2014\u201cfrom like $100k to\u2026$74k to then $126k to now $108l\u201d\u2014with realized volatility declining. To illustrate the regime change, host Joe Consorti highlighted a 90-day realized volatility reading near 29, far below the 2017 and 2021 cycle peaks, and summarized the shifting drivers: \u201cIt\u2019s more of a macro trade than anything\u2026moving much further into\u2026being impacted\u2026by the macro regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Institutional distribution channels were a recurring theme. The Galaxy research head pointed to wealth-platform access and custody bank initiatives as late-cycle but powerful accelerants. Thorn cited Morgan Stanley\u2019s move to let advisors recommend a small allocation (2-4%) through spot ETFs and said that three of the four largest global custody banks have either launched or announced digital-asset custody, with one notable holdout.<\/p>\n

The implication, he argued, is that the ETF bid and wirehouse adoption are replacing the old, concentrated holder base: \u201cThe era of the early bitcoin adopter is now finally, I think, fully coming to an end. And now you\u2019re in\u2026whatever that stage is\u2026this is going to be a widely owned macro asset in everybody\u2019s portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

NEW EPISODE: Over The Horizon \"\ud83c\udf99\"<\/p>\n

Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins<\/a>) joins me to discuss:
\n\u2013 Why markets are so anxious
\n\u2013 Institutional adoption and Bitcoin\u2019s next era
\n\u2013 AI CapEx & lessons from the dot-com boom
\n\u2013 The future of digital asset treasuries pic.twitter.com\/pVuKs3MWJH<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Horizon (@JoinHorizon_) October 23, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Macro cross-currents complicate the timing. The AI capital-expenditure boom\u2014he called it \u201cthe most important trend in markets\u201d\u2014is either nearing a speculative blow-off or, in a more geopolitical framing, just entering a Manhattan Project\u2013style national-priority phase. If the latter proves correct, the knock-on effects for liquidity, rates, energy and semiconductors could be larger and longer-lived than typical tech cycles.<\/p>\n

But for bitcoin specifically, he kept coming back to tariffs as the decisive near-term swing factor and to microstructure as the reason the chart feels both heavier and sturdier than past cycles: a passive ETF bid absorbing OG supply at psychologically significant round numbers, without the \u201cmassive uplifts\u201d that once followed fresh all-time highs.<\/p>\n

The base case he outlined is not euphoria but endurance. Or, as he put it more bluntly earlier in the conversation, the bull run hasn\u2019t died\u2014\u201cit\u2019s evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n

At press time, BTC traded at $111,183.<\/p>\n

\"Bitcoin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin\u2019s grinding tape, tamed volatility and repeated, incremental all-time highs are not symptoms of a failed cycle but evidence of a market changing hands and changing character, according to Alex Thorn, Galaxy\u2019s head of firmwide research in an interview released October 23. Bitcoin Bull Run Gone Quiet: Here’s Why The researcher argues that the driver…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3800,56,55,69,61,120,121,2526],"class_list":["post-7910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bitcoin-news","tag-alex-thorn","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-news","tag-bitcoin-price","tag-btc","tag-btc-news","tag-btc-price","tag-galaxy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}