JPMorgan suggests that Bitcoin could draw stronger support than gold if investors start unwinding the defensive positions they have built around Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. As of press time, Bitcoin was up 1.63% on the day, trading near $82,000 during the past 24 hours.

The investment bank's analysts, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, noted in a report last Wednesday that Bitcoin traders remain far more hedged than their gold counterparts, implying that if this cautious mood fades, Bitcoin would have more room to attract a disproportionate level of capital inflows. That view comes against a backdrop of mounting macroeconomic and regulatory headwinds. On September 15, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, or the CLARITY Act, failed to advance in the U.S. Senate after falling short of the required 60-vote threshold. Just a day later, the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to a range of 3.75%-4%, marking the first rate hike since 2023 as inflation remained elevated. Higher interest rates, alongside rising inflation-adjusted Treasury yields, could weigh on assets like Bitcoin and gold.

So, why does JPMorgan believe Bitcoin still has wider upside? The bank points out that gold ETFs have already recouped all the outflows suffered earlier in 2026, while Bitcoin ETFs have only recovered roughly half of their prior losses. Futures positioning continues to sit at elevated levels for both asset classes, signaling that institutional investors are still adding to their exposure. The key divergence, however, lies in the hedging landscape. Short interest in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust remains near its highest level this year, whereas short positions in the SPDR Gold Shares ETF are running below their historical average. The put-to-call open interest ratio for IBIT is also higher. JPMorgan's analysts commented that this comparison suggests Bitcoin still faces a more skeptical positioning environment overall relative to gold.

Meanwhile, recent ETF flows show sentiment remains highly volatile. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $450.4 million on September 15, followed by another $295.9 million exit on September 16. That trend reversed on September 17 with a net inflow of $159.5 million. IBIT alone attracted $183.7 million that day, while other funds saw outflows that partially offset that figure, including an approximately $16.6 million loss from Fidelity's FBTC and a roughly $7.6 million exit from VanEck's HODL. JPMorgan asserts that should investors begin trimming these defensive positions, the current higher level of hedging could eventually turn into a tailwind for Bitcoin.

Beyond renewed inflows into Bitcoin ETFs, U.S. regulators have sequentially signaled a more supportive stance toward the crypto market. After the market digested previous headwinds, including the setback in crypto legislation and the Fed's rate increase, Bitcoin reclaimed the $80,000 mark last Friday. On September 7, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched the Innovation Exemption, granting temporary, conditional waivers to qualifying tokenized securities trading venues, enabling them to trade tokenized versions of select U.S.-listed stocks on-chain. The SEC stated this move aims to push U.S. capital markets toward on-chain trading. Under the rules, approved Tokenized Securities Venues can use licensed automated market makers and liquidity pools to trade tokenized equities, subject to criteria such as restrictions on instruments and trading volumes, along with giving issuers of the underlying stocks an opportunity to object. Additionally, tokenized stocks must confer the same rights as traditional securities, including dividends and voting rights; synthetic stock tokens lacking these rights fall outside the scope of this exemption. The waiver is currently a temporary five-year measure. SEC Chair Paul Atkins noted that this step, taken under existing statutory authority, represents a push to bring capital markets into the digital age after congressional crypto legislation stalled. The market has interpreted this as a positive regulatory signal for the crypto industry.

The SEC's action was not an isolated event. Last Thursday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced a new no-action position for passive software providers. Under specific conditions, CFTC staff will not recommend enforcement action against these software providers for failing to register as introducing brokers. The arrangement applies to software that helps users interact with already registered futures commission merchants, introducing brokers, and designated contract markets. CFTC documents show this corresponds to Staff Letter 26-25 issued on September 17, broadening earlier case-by-case regulatory relief to eligible passive software providers. Some analysts believe that after the landmark CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate last Tuesday, both the SEC and CFTC are leveraging their existing authority to build out oversight frameworks, temporarily filling gaps left by congressional inaction.

Market observers argue that the bill's setback in the Senate has not fully altered investor expectations for U.S. crypto regulation, as the SEC and CFTC can still pursue rulemaking through their own jurisdictions. Consequently, the market is trading not on the idea that crypto legislation has been finalized, but rather on the notion that agencies continue to establish fresh regulatory pathways for the digital asset sector through administrative and rule-based measures. Still, the durability of this crypto rally remains under pressure from the macro environment. Alice Liu, head of research at CoinMarketCap, says that despite recent rate hikes by the Fed and the Bank of Japan, the total crypto market cap has continued to grow, indicating the market may have already partially priced in those changes. She highlights that the more important question now is how rising funding costs will impact positioning. Additionally, the SEC's Innovation Exemption is still a temporary and conditional arrangement, while the CFTC's measures come with specific terms attached. Furthermore, comprehensive market structure legislation for crypto has yet to be completed. Thus, last Friday's crypto advance more precisely reflects a repricing of incremental regulatory improvements rather than a full realization of a U.S. crypto oversight framework.