Coinbase Survey Reveals: Institutional Investors See Bitcoin as Undervalued in 2026
Wall Street's big players are whispering what crypto believers have shouted for years—Bitcoin's price tag doesn't match its potential.
The Institutional Whisper
A fresh survey from Coinbase hits the wires, revealing a quiet consensus forming in boardrooms and trading floors. The smart money—the pension funds, the family offices, the asset managers—isn't just watching crypto anymore. They're starting to call its shots. And their verdict? Bitcoin is trading at a discount.
Beyond the Hype Cycle
Forget the retail frenzy of years past. This isn't about meme coins or moon-shot predictions. This is cold, calculated capital allocation. Institutions are looking past the daily volatility, seeing an asset class that's maturing while remaining fundamentally mispriced by traditional metrics. They're building positions, not chasing pumps.
The Valuation Gap
What's driving the disconnect? Part infrastructure—regulated custody and clearer rules are finally here. Part narrative—Bitcoin as digital gold, a hedge against monetary debasement, is a story that resonates deeply in an era of bloated central bank balance sheets. The institutions get it now. Their move suggests they believe the market hasn't caught up.
A Quiet Accumulation
Don't expect a fanfare. This shift happens in quarterly reports and rebalancing memos, not on social media. It's a slow, steady drip of capital that can reshape an entire market's foundation. While day traders watch charts, the institutions are laying bricks.
The Bottom Line
When the firms that spend millions on valuation models start agreeing with crypto maximalists, it's time to listen. It turns out the most bullish signal for Bitcoin in 2026 isn't another halving—it's a survey from a publicly traded exchange landing on a CFO's desk. The ultimate finance jab? The 'smart money' is finally arriving, fashionably late to its own reckoning.
Bitcoin’s current price status raises concerns among investors
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that Bitcoin is trading at $87,831.91, down about 0.34% over the past 24 hours. This price demonstrates a decrease of more than 30% from its October all-time high of $126,080.
Analysts attributed this recent trend to a major market crash on October 10, which led to significant losses of over $19 billion in Leveraged positions. Their findings also showed that cryptocurrency prices largely held steady or declined.
Since the market crash, the crypto market has shown no signs of improvement. The upward price trend is losing steam amid US President Donald Trump’s new tariff threats, which are increasing tensions between major trading partners, the US and the Middle East.
Coinbase cautions that this trend might intensify, stressing that “geopolitical tensions have increased in many parts of the world. Any rise in conflict that disrupts energy markets could hurt investor sentiment.”
Meanwhile, the prices of Gold and silver escalated, with gold attaining an all-time high of more than $5,000 on Monday, January 26, while silver saw its market value double since October. On the other hand, the S&P 500 stock market index ROSE by just 3%.
Institutional investors maintain a bullish outlook despite challenges in the crypto market
While Coinbase proceeded with its survey, around 80% of institutional investors indicated plans to keep their existing cryptocurrency holdings or make more purchases if the market declined by an additional 10%.
Their remarks illustrated that institutional investors maintain high confidence in the future potential of cryptocurrencies. To further support this claim, reports noted that over 60% of these investors reported holding steady or increasing their crypto holdings since October, when Bitcoin attained its highest level.
Interestingly, when reporters reached out to several institutional investors to comment on the current situation in the crypto market, these investors asserted that they see several future opportunities, with 54% interpreting the current market cycle as being either in a phase of accumulation or a bear market.
Seeing the investors’ bullish outlook, Coinbase predicted that the Federal Reserve might consider two rate reductions this year, despite ongoing uncertainty about monetary policy. This situation could be advantageous to riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies.
Moreover, the crypto exchange alleged that “the economy seems to be stable to back the crypto market. Consumer inflation remained steady at 2.7% in December, and real gross domestic product grew by over 5% in the fourth quarter.”
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