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Samson Mow, CEO of bitcoin wallet company Jan3 and founder of Pixelmatic, warned at the Consensus Hong Kong cryptocurrency conference that the price of bitcoin could be ‘artificially’ suppressed. Although retail buyers are buying Bitcoin on a fixed basis, there appears to be selling pressure, ‘While both institutional and retail buyers are increasing their holdings of Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin isn't going up, so there must be people selling,’ said Mow, adding that last year the market saw structural sellers due to bankruptcies and restructurings, but that period has largely come to an end. Additionally, FTX's payoff process has fuelled selling pressure. The company is basing its repayments on a November 2022 price of around $20,000 for bitcoin. As creditors try to realise profits, which could lead to more selling, FTX is selling bitcoin at a much lower price, which could explain the lack of upward momentum in the bitcoin price.

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A month into Donald Trump's second term, the euphoria over everything from stocks to the U.S. dollar to bitcoin is fading, according to Golden Ten. Previously Crypto assets soared as the industry backed Trump, who promised to create a friendlier regulatory environment. But those gains have waned as there haven't been many new developments to continue the bullish sentiment. For example, Trump's campaign promise to create a national bitcoin reserve has yet to materialise, with White House crypto and artificial intelligence chief David Sacks saying this month that an internal working group would need to look into the feasibility of the plan. Bitcoin rose about 50 per cent in the two months after the election. But since reaching a high of more than $100,000 in January, it had fallen to near $97,000 as of Thursday. Scandals involving cryptocurrencies such as Libra have also weakened investor interest in cryptocurrencies, with Matthew Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, saying, ‘There's a very negative vibe in the cryptocurrency market right now.’