Thielen Calls $90K Bitcoin by Year-End, Says ETF Buying Was Mostly Hedging

Markus Thielen isn't backing off his year-end target. The 10x Research founder still sees Bitcoin touching $90,000 before the calendar flips, though he warns a dip into the mid-to-high $70,000s could land first, per his appearance on Cointelegraph's Trade Secrets.

The bigger eyebrow-raiser is what he thinks is behind those giant ETF numbers. Thielen reviewed Form 13F filings and estimates market makers account for as much as half of the $60 billion in net spot Bitcoin ETF inflows — firms holding shares to hedge options trades, not to bet on price. 'So in the end it was not outright buying,' he said.

Bitcoin's chart has been ugly lately. It slid to about $76,100 on Friday after Binance's $6.3 billion hack, and closed October down 7.3%, according to Coinglass. Thielen compares the current mood to early 2023, when Bitcoin climbed from around $20,000 to $30,000 while investors hunted for the next entry point.

The Fed is the wild card. Policymakers raised the benchmark rate by a quarter-point in September, putting the target range at 3.75%–4%, then held steady last Wednesday in a split vote that saw two officials push for another hike. Thielen expects one more increase by December, followed by a more cautious stance — the kind of setup he thinks could fuel a year-end rally.

Thielen is far less warm on Ethereum, and has been bearish for over a year. His gripe: too much of the value from network activity flows to layer-2 chains, leaving ETH holders with little to show. He sums it up with a highway metaphor — everybody wants empty, clean, freshly paved roads, but nobody wants to pay the toll.

As a contrast, he points to Hyperliquid, where the decentralized perpetuals exchange's assistance fund turns trading fees into HYPE and burns it. That's the kind of direct link between usage and holder benefit he wants Ethereum to build. One thing he still holds out hope for: more institutional and sovereign wealth money eventually showing up — just don't count the current ETF flows as proof it already has.