On Friday (5 October 2018), Spencer Bogart, a partner at crypto-focused venture capital firm Blockchain Capital, said in an interview with CNBC’s “Fast Money” that “Bitcoin is close to bottoming.”

CNBC reporter and news anchor Melissa Lee started the conversation by challenging Bogart’s claim that this week has been the “best week for crypto all year” despite the fact that there had been virtually no movement in the price of Bitcoin.

Bogart replied:

“Look, towards the end of last year when we were in the peak of this bull market, bad news seemed to have no effect on the markets. And I'd say that now we're seeing the other side of that, where we have a week of amazing news with TD [Ameritrade investing in new crypto exchange ErisX], Ric Edelman [joining Bitwise], and Yale [investing into a crypto fund], and it has almost no effect on price. But what I think is important that these are the important building blocks leading to more institutional capital into the space.”

Lee then asked Bogart if it would not have been more bullish if David Swensen, the Chief Investment Officer at Yale University, had actually invested directly into some cryptocurrencies instead of funds that invest in crypto-related businesses. 

Bogart answered:

“Absolutely! I definitely think that's the next step that we'll see endowments take is to go direct into the markets. But I think, for now, there's a lot of uncertainty about what will be the winners, and so it makes more sense to deploy to a fund. And plus for a lot of them, they're not quite ready to deal with some of the custodians and accountants that you'd otherwise want to see with something like an endowment.”

Lee next asked Bogart: “When you look at the price action, Spencer, what makes you think the next great headline is actually going to be a catalyst? At what point do you say ‘maybe, this trade is not working’?”

Bogart said:

“Look, we're down about 70% from our highs. So, I think that Bitcoin is close to bottoming, and so is the rest of the crypto market. So, I think it's going to take a little bit of time, but each of these news items is a piece of kindle that we're going to throw into a future crypto bonfire when we have the next bull market.”

It is interesting to note that Bogart’s comments regarding the Bitcoin price being close to a bottom mirror the institutional response to Fundstrat’s recent survey (covered by CryptoGlobe). In that survey, the 24 institutional respondents, 54% said that Bitcoin had already bottomed, 13% said that they expected it to bottom by the end of 2018, and 8% said that they expected the bottoming to occur by March 21%.

 

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