Bitcoin has surged 23% over the past week, climbing from a range that spent most of June and July stuck below $65,000 to an intraday high of $79,319 on Friday, and at least one prominent institutional investor thinks the move has real legs. Cosmo Jiang, portfolio manager at the $3.8 billion crypto investment firm Pantera Capital, told CNBC that trader positioning is now flipping from defensive to bullish.
"From everything we see, positioning is starting to reverse," Jiang said. "People are going from very much on the sidelines and even net short positioning to now realizing they want to be long, for what could be a very big technology."
What's driving the shift
Jiang pointed to a cluster of catalysts converging at once. President Trump met with crypto industry executives this week and pushed lawmakers toward a September vote on the Clarity Act, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department would at least double its long-dated bond buybacks — a signal Jiang and others read as supportive of risk assets broadly. Jiang also highlighted stablecoin adoption, prediction markets, perpetual futures, and crossover potential with artificial intelligence as fundamental tailwinds beyond the immediate price action.
JUST IN: $3.8 billion Pantera Capital tells CNBC the Bitcoin price is starting to “reverse” to the upside
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 21, 2026
"There's smart money now coming in, and there's real fundamentals to support the rebound in prices.”pic.twitter.com/278fR8t9vx
"It's really hard not to be bullish," Jiang concluded, describing bitcoin near $77,412 with resistance now coming into view around $80,000.
ETF flows point the same direction
Jiang's read on institutional sentiment lines up with what's showing up in fund flow data. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $853.54 million in a single week in early August, their largest haul since mid-April, with BlackRock's IBIT alone accounting for roughly 81% of that total — the kind of concentrated institutional buying that would typically accompany the positioning shift Jiang describes. A separate report from Galaxy Research has floated $82,470 as the level where Bitcoin's next genuine bull leg would confirm itself, a target broadly consistent with Jiang's outlook toward $80,000 and beyond; see Galaxy Research: Bitcoin's Real Bull Run Waits at $82,470 for that analysis.
Related: Bitcoin ETFs Post Biggest Inflow Since May, BlackRock Grabs 83%
Jiang's comments, delivered in a segment on CNBC's The Exchange, add a prominent institutional voice to a rebound narrative that until recently was leaning on retail momentum and ETF flows alone. Whether the reversal in positioning proves durable will likely depend on whether the fundamental catalysts he cited — regulatory clarity, Treasury policy, and stablecoin growth — continue to develop as expected through the fall.
