Retail investors show no enthusiasm as Crypto Summit failed to spark rally

The highly anticipated White House Crypto Summit flopped as retail investors, tired of Trump-related events, seemingly expected a market rally that didn’t happen.

The White House Crypto Summit and the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve seem to have failed to meet retail investors’ high expectations, leaving them frustrated as U.S. President Donald Trump-related activities sparked no market rally, analysts say.

In a March 10 post on X, analysts at Matrixport said retail investors aren’t showing much interest, with perpetual futures funding rates staying low in single digits. The current sentiment demonstrates “start contrast” compared to the high rates seen in April and December 2024, they added.

“Even the momentum surrounding Trump’s inauguration was relatively muted-a clear signal that Bitcoin’s next leg higher will require a more significant catalyst.”

Markus Thielen, independent analyst

Bybit’s analytics report done with Block Scholes also noted that while spot prices of certain cryptocurrencies went up after Trump’s announcement of a crypto strategic reserve, funding rates have stayed stable and haven’t reached extreme levels, clearly signaling that the market “needs a stronger boost than Trump’s Crypto strategic reserve.”

As crypto.news pointed out earlier, there was a risk that Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies could drop after the summit, as the event might follow the common “buy the rumor, sell the news” strategy. In this approach, speculators typically buy an asset leading up to a big event and then sell once it happens.

A good example of this was Donald Trump’s 2024 U.S. presidential victory, when cryptocurrencies surged but then lost those gains after his inauguration in January. Similarly, Ethereum’s (ETH) price rose ahead of spot exchange-traded fund approvals in September last year, only to drop afterward.