Wintermute's latest report is like a bucket of cold water: the crypto market has entered the late stage of a bear market, but the true bottom may not have arrived yet.

The logic chain of the report is very clear — Bitcoin dropped below 60K, Ethereum weakened in tandem, the fear index is 18-24, half of the circulating supply is underwater, these are indeed typical characteristics of the late bear market. But the problem is that capital hasn't returned. ETF net outflows of $1.8 billion, stablecoin liquidity indicators haven't improved, and Strategy's "permanent buying" is turning into "conditional buying" — it has authorized for the first time the sale of $1.25 billion in Bitcoin to pay dividends.
This is the most subtle structural change of this bear market: institutional buying, which was once seen as support from faith, now has a clear motivation for cashing out. Grayscale's head of research even suggested that Strategy directly sell $3 billion worth of BTC. Long-term holder positions hit an all-time high, but MVRV is approaching the cost basis, indicating that many people are just trapped rather than voluntarily locking up.
Wintermute predicts the bottom may be in September-October, provided that the macro environment, AI cooling, and capital return work together. But don't forget, high interest rate expectations are still strengthening, the strong dollar is suppressing risk assets, and although the cooling of AI trading is bearish for tech stocks in the short term, the freed capital may not necessarily flow into crypto.
The market is not short of "bottom signals"; what it lacks is real buying momentum. The current structural risk is that the narratives that once supported prices are being deconstructed one by one — ETF inflows are no longer one-way, corporate coin hoarding has become conditional holding, and stablecoin supply has not expanded. The bottom is not a price number; it is the moment when these structures find a new balance.
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