According to Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of research, Wall Street’s attitude toward Bitcoin has turned from euphoric to deeply skeptical after it failed to resolve a long, congested trade last year. In an interview with What Bitcoin Did, Thorn said this shift has less to do with conspiracy theories or a single bearish catalyst, but with exhausted demand, intense selling by long-term holders, and a market that is currently struggling to find a novel narrative.
Thorn dismissed claims that companies like Jane Street are to blame for Bitcoin’s weakness, calling this line of thinking “Twitter is coping.” He argued that much of the outrage reflected frustration with the pricing action rather than evidence of intentional suppression.
“What do we think the actual incentive will be for them to lower the price?” Thorn said. “Bitcoin is a multi-trillion dollar asset, whatever it is, a single-point, trillion-dollar asset. It’s hard to manipulate markets of a certain scale in a certain direction because it’s a free market and a big one at that.”
– Bitcoin didn’t crash because of Jane Street
– the whale deployment was significant, inevitable, necessary and fit
– the negative sentiment towards the wall on BTC is true but wrong
– the fundamental value of bitcoin is real and right
– you have to be robotmaxxing, otherwise you will be framed forever https://t.co/GUMAARf7Pl pic.twitter.com/QQhDy3RNrg— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) February 28, 2026
Why Wall Street is wrong about Bitcoin
His broader explanation was simpler. He said that from delayed 2024 through the period between the US election and the inauguration, Bitcoin was the “most popular trade in the world” because it was long. The situation changed when capital moved elsewhere. Artificial intelligence-related stocks, semiconductor names, energy companies, quantum stocks and gold have started to attract attention while Bitcoin’s momentum has weakened.
At the same time, Thorn said, long-term holders have consistently forcibly distributed coins. He described the sale as structural rather than alarming. “This is literally how distribution happens and this is how you make money from trading,” he said, arguing that older holders taking profits is part of Bitcoin’s maturation rather than a sign of failure.
He went further, viewing the distribution of whales as constructive for the network in the long run. “Technically, you want to increase sales. You want it to be distributed to people who buy it at a higher price,” Thorn said. “The price achieved is higher, and that’s good. It means that people with huge sums of money are willing to buy Bitcoin at really high prices. For me, this is a major adoption signal.”
However, Thorn admitted that sentiment had deteriorated sharply, especially among professional investors. He said Bitcoin’s failure since September to behave like “digital gold” has derailed a story many investors believed. In his opinion, Wall Street took the label too literally.
“We didn’t assume it would be a high-beta trade relative to GLD,” Thorn said. “His qualities are like gold. His trading behavior is not yet fully adapted to this. The delta between these two things, if you believe it will eventually close, is your alpha.”
This misalignment contributed to deterioration in institutional sentiment as broader macroeconomic concerns worsened. Thorn said investors’ concerns about AI come from both sides: that it may not justify the massive investment outlays, or that it may succeed enough to destroy jobs and destabilize markets. He suggested that if stocks fall due to this uncertainty, Bitcoin may have difficulty maintaining its isolation.
Still, Thorn drew a line between short-term sentiment and long-term conviction. “We should really focus on explaining its core purpose, use cases and value to the Bitcoin holder as the reason for its growth,” he said. “Stop begging Jay Powell to buy your bags. It’s not as sustainable as the reason it is because people deeply understand the savings technology that is Bitcoin.”
For Thorn, this is the real story now: Wall Street may have gone negative, but the long-term battle is still over whether more investors will start to see Bitcoin as a robust asset that stores value rather than a transient macro-transaction.
At the time of publication, the price of BTC was $66,109.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
