Anthony Scaramucci traces the recent Bitcoin selling wave back to a round number. Many early holders saw USD 100,000 per coin as their magic number and exited at that level.
Scaramucci began his career at Goldman Sachs in 1989 and founded SkyBridge Capital in 2005. The investment firm mainly runs funds of funds and ranked among the early institutional Bitcoin buyers. Outside finance, he became known in 2017. Back then, he served as White House communications director under President Donald Trump for eleven days. Since 2009, he has hosted the SALT conference series. His remarks came in an interview with The Block at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole. Around 500 investors, developers and regulators attended the invitation-only SALT event in mid-August.
Bitcoin had climbed to an all-time high of USD 126,198 in October 2025. By June 2026, however, the price had fallen to roughly USD 58,000. That amounts to a drop of about 54%. Scaramucci nevertheless rates it as moderate. Historical bear markets cost Bitcoin 75% to 80%.
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OGs sold at USD 100,000 per Bitcoin
In the industry, OGs are investors who have held Bitcoin from the early years onward. Many of them sat on their positions for 10 to 15 years. They rode out several cycles without selling. For a long time, six-figure prices remained an abstract goal for this group. They served more as a reference point than as a concrete price target. But when the price actually reached the mark, it turned into an exit signal. Moreover, round numbers bundle attention and orders at a single point. Selling pressure therefore came from the circle of the most convinced holders. Scaramucci described this mechanism to The Block.
"Honestly, a lot of OGs who held their position for 10, 15 years saw USD 100,000 per coin as a magic number for themselves - and they sold." - Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital
At the start of the year, the market was split. One camp expected a Bitcoin supercycle in which institutional demand overrides the old patterns. Many other participants stuck to the historical four-year rhythm tied to the halving. Both sides drew on the same price history, yet reached opposite conclusions. This split shaped positioning for months. Eventually, when the market hit its turning point, the selling expectations won out. Thus the expectation itself became the trigger. Scaramucci speaks of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What tipped the balance was a target fixed in people's minds for years. Bitcoin had lost around 54% against its high by June 2026. Compared with earlier bear phases, that decline stayed mild. Still, the market absorbed this supply without the usual slump.
Institutions move into the place of the OG sellers
John Darsie frames this change of ownership as part of a maturing process. The CEO of SALT doubles as a partner at SkyBridge Capital and views the market from an intermediary's seat. In his account, long-term holders and libertarians are parting with portions of their holdings. Libertarians hold Bitcoin above all as a counter-model to the state monetary system. Institutions, financial advisers and family offices, meanwhile, increasingly add Bitcoin to their asset mix. Family offices manage the wealth of single families across several asset classes. As a result, the group that moves the price is shifting.
That shift has contributed to lower volatility, in Darsie's view. The holder base is growing and losing its ideological stamp along the way. Darsie considers the development healthy, provided Bitcoin further establishes itself as a store of value. A store of value is an asset that preserves purchasing power over long periods. In addition, the counterparty question changes for institutional investors. Supply moves from conviction holders to buyers with investment guidelines and a mandate.
At the symposium in Jackson Hole, the new buyer base showed up in concrete form. Darsie says sovereign wealth funds from Singapore and the Middle East travelled in. Pension funds, endowments and family offices likewise attended. These allocators want to deploy capital into Bitcoin, liquid crypto assets and venture investments. In short, their interest covers the full breadth of the sector.
Scaramucci expects Bitcoin above USD 100,000 after the 2028 halving
Scaramucci describes the price action of recent weeks as unusually quiet. In a CNBC interview, he pointed to nine weeks with the tightest volatility range in five years. Since the Iran war began in February 2026, the price has barely moved. At the time of reporting, Bitcoin traded at around USD 65,000. A short squeeze had liquidated short positions worth USD 179 million shortly beforehand. In a short squeeze, short sellers must buy back their positions, which pushes the price up further.
For the coming months, Scaramucci still expects a sideways move. He sees the next big catalyst only about 20 months out. He means the 2028 halving, when the block reward for miners halves again. From that cycle he expects the return above USD 100,000. A near-term breakout therefore needs a fresh trigger. Despite the weak first half of the year, his basic stance stays positive.
The market does not share this view uniformly. According to Forbes, some analysts expect a further decline into a range of USD 57,000 to USD 58,500. In the week before the symposium, US spot Bitcoin ETFs also recorded net outflows of roughly USD 390 million. These funds hold Bitcoin directly and track the price one to one. Such outflows show that the institutional channel works in both directions. Accordingly, the range of expectations remains wide.
Earlier forecasts and his own positioning
Investors should nonetheless be able to place his assessments in context. In April 2024, Scaramucci named USD 170,000 as his Bitcoin target for that cycle. He based the call on the halving and the newly approved spot ETFs. The cycle then peaked in October 2025 at USD 126,198. He missed his target by roughly a quarter. Notably, the parallel to his current statement is striking. Similarly, his 2028 expectation rests on the same halving mechanics.
His own positioning adds to that. SkyBridge's flagship fund most recently held 64% of its assets in digital assets. According to Bloomberg, it lost 18% in the fourth quarter of 2025. In the first quarter of 2026, it shed another 12.9%. Its volume last stood at around USD 1.3 billion. At its peak in 2015, in contrast, SkyBridge managed about USD 9 billion. Consequently, Scaramucci's market comments touch his own book directly.
Investors are also trying to get out of the fund. In a repurchase offer, they submitted around 792,000 shares. The fund bought back only about 64,000 of them, or 8.1%. Previously, in 2022, SkyBridge had sold 30% of its own shares to FTX Ventures. A few weeks later, the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy. Scaramucci had publicly backed its founder earlier and bought the stake back afterwards.
AI and blockchain as Scaramucci's next bet
Beyond the Bitcoin price, Scaramucci is betting on a convergence of AI and blockchain. He expects that AI agents will most likely settle future transactions over blockchains. Such agents act on behalf of users and trigger payments on their own. An agent could pay for computing power, data or services without a human step. So they need payment rails that work without manual approval. Specifically, the SkyBridge founder sees the touchpoint of the two technologies there.
Darsie points to a development already under way. Bitcoin miners are shifting part of their capacity into AI computing. Both uses compete for the same computing and energy infrastructure. Furthermore, he names energy, AI, robotics, fintech and digital assets as the big themes of the coming decade. At the same time, that list maps what the allocators who travelled to Jackson Hole are screening for.
The capital providers at the symposium were not looking for Bitcoin exposure alone. Venture investments sat on their list next to liquid crypto assets. Scaramucci's thesis thus meets an audience that already reviews such infrastructure bets. However, he gives no timeline for the convergence of AI and blockchain.
