James Thorne has seen this trade before, and he believes it is about to happen again. The chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth says Bitcoin is entering a generational supercycle, not just another bull run. “The next run in Bitcoin is going to be one for the ages,” he said.
A lesson from the commodities boom
Thorne drew on his early career trading resources. Two decades ago, he recalled, Goldman Sachs pitched the BRIC trade on Park Avenue, arguing that China’s entry into the World Trade Organization and its rapid urbanisation would transform commodities.
“Commodities didn’t change,” Thorne said. “The market structure around it changed, and we had a supercycle.”
He sees the same shift now. The GENIUS Act, stablecoins and tokenization are moving the global financial system on-chain, and Bitcoin and Ethereum will be part of it. “It’s no longer this libertarian point of view,” he said. “This is crypto going mainstream.” He described the change as “as profound as China getting into the World Trade Organization.”
The 3% to 5% playbook
Twenty years ago, Thorne said, almost nobody owned commodities. Then research showed that adding 2% to 5% of commodities to a portfolio improved risk-adjusted returns, and money flooded in. “It’s exactly what’s happening with Bitcoin,” he said.
He believes investors should hold 3% to 5% of their portfolios in Bitcoin or Ethereum. He pointed to a Fidelity fund in Canada that already places 3% to 5% in Bitcoin.
The four-year cycle is over
Thorne declared the halving-driven four-year cycle “done.” The next wave of demand, he said, will come from traditional 60/40 investors and institutions, many of whom already hold Bitcoin quietly “because it’s not acceptable” to say so.
He expects Wall Street to coalesce around a few winners, much as it did with Google over rival search engines such as Ask Jeeves and Dogpile. For him, those winners are Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Why the chart looks “fantastic”
Thorne was blunt about the current price action. Bitcoin has been chopping between $83,000 and $86,000, and he urged investors to use that period to “load in.”
- Cup and handle: He called the chart “a perfect cup and handle.”
- Trend turning up: Bitcoin trades above its 200-day exponential moving average, and that average’s slope has turned positive.
- Timing: There could be noise until the midterm elections, he said, “but then it’s going to take off.”
“The pain trade is due north,” he said. Bitcoin’s perfect scarcity means there is no supply response when demand rises. “Narrative follows price.”
Bitcoin and the settlement problem
Thorne argued that the 2008 financial crisis was really a settlement crisis. When money market funds “broke the buck,” no one could identify the counterparty risk in near-cash assets. “Bitcoin solves that problem,” he said.
He also expects money made in the AI trade to rotate into Bitcoin as investors look to lock in gains. His advice, “Get enough position in the portfolio, do your work, and enjoy the ride.”