Why ‘higher prices’ are bitcoin’s best friend

Yahoo Finance Video and Julie Hyman

Mon, February 16, 2026 at 10:00 PM GMT+9

In this video:

BTC-USD

+0.57%

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) Investor Week 2026 was last week in New York City, gathering together many of the coin’s major investors.

Scott Melker, host of “The Wolf Of All Streets” podcast, sits down with Yahoo Finance anchor Julie Hyman at Bitcoin Investor Week to explain how retail investors are reacting to bitcoin’s sell-off.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts.

Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

So, I feel like you’re somebody who is sort of tapped into the retail investor around this. That’s your audience, um largely. And while we’ve been seeing the sell off, like what are those folks doing? What are you hearing from them um as this has been going on?

00:20 Speaker B

I think it’s very clear from even looking at the crypto fear and greed index, which is sitting at five, historically low that people are very fearful. Um the sentiment is in the dumpster right now. But to be quite honest, I think that most of those people washed out at higher prices or in previous cycles and that retail has not been participating in the way that many anticipated they they would be in this cycle. I think that the narrative has really been institutionally driven. It’s been the digital asset Treasury companies and the ETFs and the adoption by wirehouses. and I think retail largely either utilized their dry powder at higher prices or bought it years ago and have somewhat forgotten about it. But by almost any metric you can look at, retail just isn’t really that involved in buying these products right now.

01:14 Speaker A

What would change that, do you think?

01:16 Speaker B

It’s very easy, higher prices. I know it sounds like a joke, but I I always say it that the best advertising for Bitcoin or any asset to be fair is higher prices. If you see Bitcoin go down $20,000 in a week, all of the narratives, the same stories are viewed with a bearish tilt. Goes up $20,000 the next week. I can’t believe that news. It was incredible. It’s bullish. We’re going to a million dollars. So, it really just takes a small, I think infusion of liquidity or some small catalyst. There’s nothing on my radar really news wise that I think is going to do it. I think a lot of people were looking to the Clarity Act being approved. Obviously, we had the Genius Act before. To me, those are the kind of things that now are priced in and aren’t really sparks for retail. I think those are the kind of events that you look back when the market is looking more bullish and you say, wow, we should have been paying a lot more attention. That was a huge catalyst. everything has changed, but I don’t think that they’re going to move the price at this moment. But once again, if Bitcoin just even has a bit of a rise and creating at 95,000, I think interest will be completely different.

Terms and Privacy Policy

Privacy Dashboard

More Info