Adam Back: Institutional funds are positioning in Bitcoin, but the pace of entry is much slower than the market expected.

Golden Finance reports that on April 29, some observers viewed Morgan Stanley’s earlier this month entry into the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market as a catalyst to end the current crypto bear market, citing the large distribution network of this Wall Street giant’s $8 trillion wealth advisory platform. However, Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream and an early contributor to the Bitcoin community, said “not so fast.” Back has recently been speculated by The New York Times to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous founder of Bitcoin — he denied this.
Back stated that, from a positive market signal perspective, Bitcoin ETFs could be the most important development in the near term, even more so than a pro-crypto U.S. government, but the process is slower than most realize. Back said, “I think one misconception people might have is that institutional adoption is very slow. So, ETFs have already been bought, but when BlackRock suggests allocating 2% to 4% in their general stock portfolios, fund managers haven’t done it yet. They will, but slower than people expect.” He added that investors won’t rush in overnight, and the buildup could take a year or even 18 months.
Regarding prices, Back said it’s necessary to consider the cyclical nature of Bitcoin’s four-year halving cycle. He pointed out that even if some commentators believe the four-year cycle is breaking, “people expect it to happen, so they sell, and then it really happens,” and declines could still occur. This logic only changes when people see the market strengthening, which is currently happening through institutional capital inflows. Back also mentioned that regarding recent comments about the potential threat of quantum computing hardware accelerating and endangering Bitcoin cryptography, institutions are more systematic in risk management, focusing on tail risks, while retail investors see it as a distant future risk.