Luke Gromen says bitcoin’s failure to break decisively higher may reflect more than weak demand, arguing that paper instruments can temporarily absorb buying pressure in the same way that derivatives have shaped the gold market for years.
Speaking to Nathalie Brunell in a June 6 interview, the macro analyst said he did not materially restore the Bitcoin position he had previously reduced. “I’ve been nibbling a little bit,” Gromen said, but added that he “hasn’t really come back in any way.” The reason, he suggested, is that the recent price of Bitcoin could signal something important about the liquidity, market structure and political sensitivity of the hard asset signal.
Paper Bitcoin and the zone of frustration from 58 to 72 thousand dollars
Brunell asked Gromen about his previous remark that Bitcoin could be stuck in what she described as “the $58-$72k band” for a while, and whether BTC and gold prices could be suppressed. Gromen clarified that the comment was partly “tongue-in-cheek”, but said that there was a serious mechanism behind the idea.
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“I think they would do it by spreading derivatives, like they’ve done with gold historically,” he said. “I think in the long term you can. I don’t think you can do that with Bitcoin, but to the extent that you can expand derivatives, in the short term, they can be important.”
Gromen’s argument is not that the supply of Bitcoin can be changed, but that the demand can be redirected. A buyer who would normally buy spot BTC can instead buy a call option or some other synthetic instrument. This still expresses bullish exposure, but does not necessarily remove coins from the market in the same way that a proprietary spot accumulation would.
“Someone wants to own Bitcoin, but they’re not buying Bitcoin. They’re buying a call on Bitcoin,” Gromen said. “If you didn’t have those derivatives there, then if you want to own Bitcoin, you have to own Bitcoin. Now you can buy a derivative on Bitcoin, and it’s starting to get sloppier, looser.”
For Gromen, this difference is the most important compared to shorter windows. He argued that policymakers can manage optics “for many things” in the short term, even if they cannot do so indefinitely.
Luke Gromen on Why Bitcoin Could Be Around $58,000-$72,000: Big Players Can Meet Demand with Paper Bets Instead of Buying Real #Bitcoinwhich keeps the price down.
It was being worked on #gold years, but don’t think it lasts forever with Bitcoin… https://t.co/yPAuJA3dKI pic.twitter.com/CwZ2cGwwW6
— Natalie Brunell ⚡️ (@natbrunell) June 9, 2026
Bitcoin as a smoke alarm for liquidity
The thesis on the suppression of derivatives is located within a wider macro framework. Gromen described Bitcoin as “one of, if not the last, functioning liquidity smoke alarm,” and said its recent weakness “doesn’t tell us good things.” In his view, liquidity is being absorbed elsewhere, most obviously by stocks linked to artificial intelligence and energy and commodities after the Iran war.
“The AI sucks all the oxygen out of the room, all the fluid out of the room, and it’s all in one area,” Gromen said. “And I think that’s happening to Bitcoin as well. I think it’s a victim of that too.”
He argued that the stock’s rise was less than the major indices suggested, with AI-related names heavily influencing the move. This makes Bitcoin’s backlog more relevant to it: if BTC is a liquidity-sensitive asset and doesn’t confirm the strength of stocks, the market could be less healthy than the index level implies.
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Gromen linked the issue to US efforts to stimulate the economy, weaken the dollar and direct production. These forces, he said, should be positive for gold and Bitcoin in a freer market. But they also risk sending an unpleasant message.
“There are elements in the US that don’t want to see that because they’re going to communicate these things to the world, hey, you’re just getting high,” he said. “Hey, you’re just puffing yourself up. And that’s creating some problems on the funding side with the Treasury market.”
Its base case is not a conventional collision, but a shift in scale. He expects the stock to rise in dollar terms, while falling if priced in gold and bitcoin. In that scenario, solid assets outperform nominal claims, while 10-year bond yields remain largely contained in the 4% to 4.5% range.
That’s why Gromen doesn’t see any potential suppression of Bitcoin as permanent. Paper markets may delay the move. I can blur the signal. But in his framework, they cannot eliminate the underlying macro pressure.
“In the short term, they can operate the optics,” he said. “In the long run, I can’t.”
At press time, BTC was trading at $60,966.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
