Bitcoin [BTC] market is in “show me mode”, says Wall Street executive

Bitcoin [BTC] seems to be in what CNBC calls ‘purgatory’, trading between levels of $6000 and $7500. Bart Smith, the Head of Digital Asset at Susquehanna International Group appeared on Fast Money earlier today to talk about the price of the coin and the catalysts for growth.

The executive, known as Wall Street’s “crypto king”, spoke about the market as well. He stated that the market was in a “show me” mode, where movement occurs only with events occurring. He said:

“The market is in show me mode.There’s a lot of news that’s come along that you thought would be a catalyst, where the market hasn’t responded.”

Speaking about Bitcoin’s position in “purgatory”, Smith stated that he agreed with those that stated that this is a bear market rally. He also stated that this would be the case until the coin breaks out to new highs.

Cryptocurrency investors have eagerly been waiting for news of the approval of an Exchange-Traded Fund for Bitcoin by the United States Securities and Exchanges Commission. Smith also spoke about this, stating:

“An ETF in the United States that’s SEC-registered would have a much bigger effect, but then again if there’s something thats driving the money into the price of Bitcoin, I imagine that that would raise it up.”

Speaking on the eventual custodianship that Wall Street would begin offering for the cryptocurrencies, he stated that there was a different set of securities for every broker-dealer in the market currently. He also mentioned some exceptions, stating:

“JPMorgan [and] Jamie Dimon have said that they won’t let their investors invest in Bitcoin. Depending on where you have your brokerage account and whether you can get access to whatever it is at that place.”

CNBC’s Brian Kelly was very bullish on another piece of news recently, going so far as to call it the biggest news of the year. This was the announcement by InterContinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, where they stated that they will launch a company called Bakkt. The company will offer a federally regulated market for digital assets.

Smith also spoke on this move, stating:

“It was very surprising. I think we saw a lot of big names in the space, Novogratz and many others, saying ‘I don’t know why this isn’t a bigger deal’. You have a CFTC regulated warehouse. This is an opportunity for NYSE and ICE, the parent company to custody warehouse the spot commodity for institutions.”

He went on to say that ICE is a name that most traders trust, and that it offers a fixed connection for market makers, reducing the time required to build the infrastructure that this kind of product requires. He also said:

“That’s a head scratcher.  Its the one that you thought people would show and say this is a big deal…it [the market] is in show me mode. When they register those and when they trade and the volume is high, I think the market will come back in. But you’ve seen over and over there’s going to be an ETF and there isn’t, we’ve been knocking back and forth between the $6000 and $6800 level again.”