Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl told clients Thursday that Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) $58,000 June low was the cycle bottom and the firm is now giving a green light to allocate.
What Pandl Said About the Bottom
Pandl told The Block at Avalanche Summit in New York that Grayscale called the bottom at $58,000 at the end of June and he is sticking with that view.
Bitcoin trades above $76,000 Thursday, up 1% over 24 hours, but still roughly 39% below its record high of around $126,000.
Grayscale uses a three-part framework before advising clients to allocate, covering the long-term structural trend, the stage of the market cycle, and the macroeconomic backdrop.
Pandl said all three conditions are now clear. “In my view, you can check all of those boxes today,” he said. “So we are certainly giving the green light to our clients.”
The call echoes Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong, who said on September 10 that Bitcoin has bottomed for the current cycle and expects a two-year upward trend heading into the next halving.
Why Pandl Is Also Watching Zcash
Pandl also told The Block that Grayscale has offered a Zcash (CRYPTO: ZEC) investment product for roughly nine years, and his thesis rests on a gap that Bitcoin leaves open: privacy.
“Bitcoin needs a privacy layer, digital currencies need a privacy layer, Bitcoin is missing that,” Pandl said.
His view is that Zcash occupies an underexplored design space rather than competing with Bitcoin directly.
Different blockchains make different trade-offs, and Zcash prioritizes privacy at the expense of some of the transparency Bitcoin offers.
With AI growing more powerful and personal data more exposed, Pandl argued that Zcash gives investors a direct way to express a view on financial and personal privacy as a theme.
Why the Timing Matters
Pandl’s green light comes in the immediate aftermath of two market hits in one week: the Clarity Act’s Senate defeat and the Fed’s first rate hike in three years.
Despite both, he is not pulling back his bottom call or his allocation recommendation.
That conviction, coming from one of the largest institutional crypto asset managers, puts a floor under the narrative at a moment when sentiment across the broader market is fragile.
Photo via Shutterstock
Login to comment