The Real Forces Moving Bitcoin Now | Marc Arjoon

Key Takeaways

• Miners control ~10% of BTC and use futures to hedge; many run negative economics, splitting between treasury accumulation and selling to fund AI pivots, adding sustained sell pressure.
• Hash rate has risen even as price and fees fell, increasing reliance on the block subsidy; legacy paid-but-unused assets from 2021 affect miner overhead and choices.
• Four months of net negative ETF flows are historic, but asset managers and pension buys provide a structural floor—insufficient alone to trigger a rapid V-shaped rally.
• Basis trade yields collapsed after October; contango returns fell to low single digits and CME futures open interest dropped—revival needs retail inflows or macro catalysts.
• The halving is priced for the long term, yet media and retail create short-term volatility; halving dynamics must be weighed against broader debt and macro forces.
• Institutions prefer regulated custody and compliant blockchains, often overlooking open-source governance risks; community debates (forks, ordinals, quantum/BIP36) still shape Bitcoin's decentralization.

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