It's not exactly news to frustrated bitcoin BTC$110,443.86 bulls that risk assets across the planet for months have been recording what seem like daily record highs while the price action in BTC remains rather muted.

"What if everyone is looking at this wrong," asks longtime traditional finance asset manager Jordi Visser in a heavily shared (1.5M views on X and counting) weekend essay titled "Bitcoin’s Silent IPO: Why This Consolidation Isn’t What You Think."

While bitcoin never had a traditional IPO, the factors liming price gains are nearly exactly the same as those which cause poor price performance in stock IPOs, argues Visser.

Tradfi IPOs and the months that follow, reminds Visser — particularly in tech — are major liquidity events for early investors.

"Early-stage investors take enormous risks," wrote Visser. "If the investment succeeds, they deserve enormous rewards. But eventually, and this is crucial, they need to realize those gains. They need liquidity. They need an exit. They need to diversify."

The examples, particularly in tech, are legion, but consider the Facebook (now Meta) IPO of 2012. The offering at $38 per share raised $16 billion at a valuation of $104 billion — quaint numbers today, but staggering amounts at the time. One year later, the stock was 30% lower, with pundits questions Mark Zuckerberg's leadership.

More likely than missteps by Zuck, it was early investors — be they his Harvard buddies, or Silicon Valley types, or the carpenters who framed out Facebook's first offices (who took pay in shares rather than cash) using public markets to realize life-changing profits.

Importantly, says Visser, the early investors don't hit the bid all at once. "They’re methodically distributing their positions. They’re being careful. They don’t want to crater the price. They’re patient. They’ve waited years for this moment. They can wait a few more months to do it right."

The result, he says: "A sideways grind that drives everyone crazy." Sound familiar?

Economic forces don't disappear

"The on-chain data tells a clear story if you know how to read it," says Visser, turning to bitcoin. "Old coins, coins that haven’t moved in years, some dormant since the single-digit price days, are suddenly active."

The ETFs, the institutional adoption, the friendly regulatory environment ... this created IPO-like conditions for bitcoin's early believers.

"For years, the liquidity simply didn’t exist," he wrote. "Try selling $100 million of bitcoin in 2015. You’d crater the price. Try selling $1 billion in 2019. Same problem. The market couldn’t absorb it."

"But now," he continued. "ETFs are providing institutional bid. Major companies hold bitcoin on their balance sheets. Sovereign wealth funds are getting involved. The market has finally matured to the point where early holders can exit significant positions without causing chaos."

Again, reminds Visser, it's not being done all at once — no one is interested in crashing the price. But instead, steadily and methodically: hence the sideways grind and the rallies that reverse so quickly.

Patience required

What's occurring now is hardly anything that can be called a bear market, says Visser, but instead a distribution of ownership.

Over the long run, this is a bullish event, but the process — at least in traditional markets — can take 6-18 months. Even though cycles often get sped up in crypto, Visser suspects there could be many more months of this frustrating price action in bitcoin.

"Sentiment will only improve after the distribution is substantially complete," he wrote. "People are demoralized because they don’t understand what phase we’re in. They’re waiting for bitcoin to 'catch up' to stocks. They are worried about the four year cycle. Be patient. Once the heavy selling pressure lifts, once the patient accumulation by institutions has absorbed the OG supply, the path becomes clearer."