Live updates: Bitcoin ETFs had their worst month ever in June, shedding $4.5 billion

Bitcoin’s best gains may still be ahead, but the math behind them has changed dramatically, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said in an X post Wednesday.

In 2011, $2.7 billion in net capital inflows drove a 55,000% price increase. This cycle, $697 billion produced a 689% return. The ratio of dollars in to price gain has compressed by roughly 80 times across cycles, a reflection of bitcoin’s growing size and the shrinking pool of sellers willing to part with coins cheaply.

Ju’s argument is that the next parabolic move requires a different kind of buyer.

Retail and ETF flows have driven the current cycle. The next leg, he says, needs bitcoin to become a core macro asset with deep institutional allocation, the kind that moves in hundreds of billions rather than tens. At $1 trillion or more in realized capital absorbed, he sees another parabolic run as viable.

The comparison point is gold, which carries a $27 trillion market cap. Bitcoin’s current market value sits near $1.2 trillion, meaning even closing a fraction of that gap would represent multiples from here.