Crypto VC exec on bulls’ case

Chris Burniske says Ethereum could outperform Bitcoin in March due to the Shanghai upgrade.
Burniske is a partner at crypto-focused VC Placeholder and formerly of ARK Invest (crypto division).
According to the investor, pullbacks are likely to remain “within current uptrend.”

Chris Burniske, partner at venture capital firm Placeholder and former head of crypto ARK Invest, is bullish on crypto going into March.

The investor believes the recent flip in sentiment has not resulted in deeper rot for major cryptocurrencies, despite the weakness seen across stocks amid investor anxiety over interest rates.

In a tweet posted this weekend, Burniske said the outlook is mostly bullish as recent pullbacks have been largely mild.

“From where I sit, I’m surprised crypto hasn’t pulled back more given weakness in equities and upward repricing in rates — bullish,” he noted.

Ex-ARK Invest head of crypto shares Ethereum and Bitcoin price predictions

Bitcoin and Ethereum have both retreated from year-to-date highs, from above $25k and $1.7k respectively. 

As noted above, the leading digital assets by market capitalization have given up the recent gains amid continued jitters over US inflation data. Buy-side volume has also tanked on shifting sentiment around the regulatory environment in the United States returned sell-off pressure across the markets.  

But while Bitcoin has retraced to support around $23,000 and Ethereum continues to hover around $1,600, the crypto bull says any further losses in the short term are likely to be “within the current uptrend.”

“To those saying some version of “just wait,” sure we could pull back a bit more, but calls for new lows anytime soon are silly. Pullbacks are consolidation within the current uptrend, imo,” the investor added.

In terms of price prediction for the top two coins, Burniske thinks Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin in March. According to him, ETH is likely to gain fresh momentum from the highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade, which is expected to drive staking flows. 

A guess:

-January $BTC beasted, led the rest-February we mostly consolidated -March $ETH beasts, leads the rest with Shanghai upgrade driving ETH staking flows

— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) February 24, 2023

The outlook is supported by on-chain data, which shows new value sent to the ETH 2.0 deposit contract continues to rise. 

Crypto analytics firm Santiment recently shared a chart showing that the number of newly staked coins rose a 5-month high count earlier this week.

📈 #Ethereum $ETH New Value Added to the ETH 2.0 Deposit Contract just reached a 5-month high of $69,991,765.78

Previous 5-month high of $62,631,647.91 was observed on 23 January 2023

View metric:https://t.co/0FBplusJVM pic.twitter.com/eKJuqYojRG

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) February 25, 2023