Former Morgan Stanley Director Backs Bitcoin's Bullish Momentum

Former Morgan Stanley Director Backs Bitcoin's Bullish Momentum

Lockridge Okoth

Wed, August 26, 2026 at 9:25 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• BTC-USD +1.28%
• MS +0.36%

Andy Baehr, GSR's managing director of asset management, says bitcoin's $80,000 breakout marks a new market regime. He argues the crypto trading firm watched a stagnant summer flip into real momentum within days.

Baehr spent 25 years on Wall Street derivatives desks, including Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, before crossing into digital assets. He served as the Executive Director of Equity Derivatives at Morgan Stanley between 2006 and 2007.

Why Baehr Sees a New Bitcoin Regime After $80,000

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly , topping out at $reclaimed $80,000 this week, topping out at $81,272 on Monday. It marked the first time since May that the pioneer crypto tested this threshold.

Baehr had urged patience through what he called a "super slow summer" of thin volumes and muted price action. The stagnation was measurable. Digital asset funds bled a record $8 billion across eight straight weeks of ETF withdrawals before demand returned.

Then the mood turned fast. News of Treasury buybacks in long-dated bonds arrived alongside a planned White House gathering of crypto executives. Industry leaders were meeting in Jackson Hole as the headlines hit, Baehr recalled.

Trapped bears did the rest. Bearish traders absorbed $1.06 billion in liquidations in a single day as the breakout gathered pace.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs then added nearly $2 billion in net inflows over five days, Baehr noted. Call option demand returned, and funding rates on perpetual futures reinflated.

"All of those are good market structure signs that this kind of rally is for real, and we can expect more energy to follow," Baehr said in the interview.

The move now faces its first test. BTC trades near $78,530, down about 0.8% in 24 hours. Analysts still map a path toward $83,000 if momentum holds.

Ethereum, Solana, and the Clarity Act Wildcard

The rally reached beyond Bitcoin. GSR's models have favored Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) for weeks. Its Core3 trading model recently made Solana its largest weighting at roughly 44%.

Baehr reads that rotation as a bet on blockchain adoption itself. In his view, flows into ETH and SOL suggest investors expect tokenization and stablecoins to reshape how markets settle.

Legislation remains the wildcard. Baehr wants the Clarity Act passed this year. The bill would define how the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) split crypto oversight.

He concedes the vote could slip to 2027 and calls agency rulemaking a credible fallback. Both regulators, he argues, are already cooperating in ways rarely seen in traditional markets.

Baehr also cited US debt crossing $40 trillion as fuel for dollar debasement trades favoring bitcoin and gold. Whether the new regime sticks may show up first in ETF flows and funding rates.

Read the Original story Former Morgan Stanley Director Backs Bitcoin's Bullish Momentum by Lockridge Okoth at beincrypto.com