Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, February 13th, and today we are talking about an interesting

sentiment dichotomy. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go

subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation,

come join us on the breakers discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash

breakdown pod.

Well, friends, throughout the week, we've talked about the divergence between sentiment on

crypto Twitter and perceived sentiment among institutional investors. The conversation was sparked

by Bitwise CIO Matt Hogan, tweeting last weekend, there is an absolutely massive disconnect

between retail and professional sentiment in crypto right now.

Retail sentiment is the worst it's been in years, while professional investors are extraordinarily

bullish. It's like living in two completely separate worlds. Hogan unpacked this theory in a

research note published on Wednesday, writing, Retail sentiment in crypto is terrible, even though

the fundamentals are great. I smell opportunity.

He discussed the headwinds that institutional investors are seeing. Record ETF inflows over recent

months, an environment in Washington that is entirely flipped, and nation-state adoption that feels

somewhere between possible and imminent. At the same time, the existential risks have vaporized,

things like government bans and legal threats

to developers. Hogan wrote, from a risk-adjusted perspective, it is arguably the best time in history

to invest in crypto. However, he recognized that retail investor sentiment is at multi-month lows

and has dropped like a stone from the November highs. Hogan isn't just taking the pulse of crypto-Twitter. He presented

...