Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, one of the biggest exclusively blockchain-related hedge funds, has described the sell-off that has caused the current crypto-bloodbath as an “overreaction” to the delayed decision on a bitcoin ETF by the SEC and appealed for calm.

As the SEC announced it was postponing a decision on a bitcoin ETF on August 7th, investors began one of the biggest sell-offs in recent months which saw more than $200 billion wiped off the total crypto market value in less than 24 hours.

The SEC has slowly pitched itself into the oppositional position to investors, with its recent decisions not being taken well by the market. Many pundits are seeing the SEC’s delay in approving a bitcoin ETF as a reason to abandon ship. Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera is however calling for cooler heads and a more long-term approach.

Speaking with CNBC, Dan has given his two Satoshis on the matter:

“I still think it will be quite a long time until an ETF is approved. The last asset class to be approved for ETF certification was copper, and copper has been on earth for 10,000 years.”

Wait, Dan, I know you said long term but … seriously?

Okay so hopefully Dan just has a sense of humour and isn’t actually expecting it to take 10,000 years. However, the point is that these things take time. The ETF idea has really been reported in the media for all of about 2 weeks and we’re already saying it’s taking too long. We should put things in perspective. Morehead went on to explain how the psychology of the market works:

“The main thing to remember is that bitcoin is a very early-stage venture, but has real-time price feed — and that’s a unique thing. People get excited about the price and overreact.”

He’s right. We need to stop overreacting. Bitcoin, even after tumble after tumble is still trading at double the price it was at a year ago. In addition to this, there was still a slew of positive news in the last seven days. Bakkt, the joint venture between Microsoft, Starbucks, and the NYSE, is potentially huge and could change the game in many other ways. We shouldn’t lose hope just yet, as there is still a lot going on in this space.

“[Bakkt] is going to be a very profound impact over the next five or 10 years for the markets, and, to my mind, that’s what people should be focused on.” Said Morehead.

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