Fundstrat’s Tom Lee Says Two Factors Preventing Bitcoin From Going to the ‘Moon’ Despite Heavy Demand From ETFs

Fundstrat co-founder and chief investment officer Tom Lee is highlighting two possible reasons why Bitcoin (BTC) has failed to go to the “moon” despite the crypto king’s spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) enjoying the “most successful product launch in history.”

In a new CNBC interview, Lee says one of the reasons could be the strategy the spot Bitcoin ETFs have employed to accumulate the flagship digital asset.

“I think what happened is a couple of things. One is a lot of these ETFs may have been receiving in-kind exchange. So people have their crypto keys, give it to the ETF provider and then they just stepped up their basis. So that’s not going to push up the price of Bitcoin.”

The Fundstrat CIO further says profit-taking among early Bitcoin investors could be playing a role in suppressing the price of the largest crypto asset by market cap.

“The second is that the ones who aren’t involved in ETFs, but maybe they have $10-Bitcoin… we have clients that have bought Bitcoin at $100 and now it’s $100,000. They don’t care if Bitcoin goes to $1 million. They are probably sellers at around $100,000.

So we’re churning the base now because 95% of the institutional world doesn’t own Bitcoin. But a very significant portion of Bitcoin holders are sitting on huge gains. So I think this is the churn that’s happening in Bitcoin now.”

The US spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen $48.608 billion in net inflows since their launch in January of 2024. Bitcoin is trading at $107,290 at time of writing, around the same price it was at in December of 2024.

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