The Bitcoin Community Is Divided Over Institutional Interest

Early Bitcoin adopters aren’t likely to stop being skeptical of institutional adoption anytime soon, says Bitcoin venture fund Ego Death Capital co-founder, Preston Pysh.

“Part of that culture that brought it to where it is, is looking at where this is all going and saying no, no, no, no, this is all moving in a bad direction,” Pysh told Natalie Brunell on the Coin Stories podcast on Friday.

Pysh said that institutions engaging in “institutional-like things,” such as Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives, have some Bitcoiners concerned about the long-term impact and whether Bitcoin can still serve as the safe-haven asset it once was.

“Am I being scammed, like all the other scams that preceded this wave?” is a question Pysh says some of the Bitcoin community are asking as institutional interest grows.

Bitcoiners who pushed it past $1 trillion worry about its direction

The comments come amid ongoing debate in the Bitcoin community over whether growing institutional interest is moving Bitcoin away from its original purpose.

“For people who have made Bitcoin what it is, getting it here, over a trillion dollars, involved individuals, for the most part, self-custodying Bitcoin, holding onto the keys for dear life through 70% and 80% downturns and still not selling them,” Pysh said, adding:

“The term we like to throw around is we’re Bitcoin psychopaths.”

It comes nearly a month after a heated debate on social media when crypto analyst Scott Melker, also known as The Wolf of All Streets, said that Bitcoin “is amazing” but has been taken over to some extent by the people it was created as a hedge against.

Meanwhile, Ryan McMillin, chief investment officer at Merkle Tree Capital, recently told Cointelegraph that old Bitcoin being sold to new institutions is a sign of its “integration with the financial system.” 

Institutions will use Bitcoin “very differently” than individuals: Pysh

Pysh explained that the Bitcoin ethos is being challenged, and he expects it to continue facing scrutiny as institutional interest expands.

“I think that it’s going to move in a direction where a lot of people use Bitcoin the way they wanna use Bitcoin, especially institutions, who are going to use it very differently to how individuals use it,” Pysh said.

Related: Bitcoin price charges to $116K as Fed’s Powell hints at interest-rate cut

“That’s a difficult pill for people to swallow,” he said.

“At large, part of the Bitcoin culture is to be pretty much skeptical of everything and to question everything,” he added.

According to a March 18 report by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon, 83% of institutional investors surveyed said they plan to increase crypto allocations in 2025.

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