There’s a general perception that retail investors are susceptible to rosy-eyed forecasts about the future of bitcoin, while institutions are more clear-headed about the prospects of this nascent asset class. However, a new survey conducted by Wall Street strategy firm Fundstrat suggests that once institutional investors are interested in bitcoin, they become even more bullish than their retail counterparts.

Institutions Believe Bitcoin Price Has Bottomed

Fundstrat, the first Wall Street strategy firm to embrace bitcoin, conducted a six-question Twitter poll to gauge the sentiment among retail cryptocurrency investors and then asked the same questions at a private dinner held with institutional investors. The firm subsequently compiled the answers into a report published on Thursday.

While a plurality of both institutional and retail investors said that they believed the bitcoin price had bottomed, institutions were more confident by a 10 percent margin. Institutions were also more bullish on bitcoin’s prospects in 2019, with 57 percent stating that they believed the bitcoin price would end the year above $15,000, compared to 40 percent of retail investors.

Institutions Love BTC, Retail Prefers XRP

The greatest divide between institutions and “Crypto Twitter” appeared when investors were asked to predict the best performing cryptocurrency of 2019, as well as identify their least favorite token.

Among institutions, bitcoin was the runaway favorite for best performing token of 2019, with 59 percent of investors placing their bets on the flagship cryptocurrency. EOS finished a distant second at 18 percent, with ethereum, NEO, tron, and stellar also receiving votes.

On Twitter, ripple (XRP) reigned supreme, accruing 46 percent of the votes. Bitcoin finished second with 31 percent, followed by ethereum and EOS (no other tokens were included in the poll since Twitter only allows for four options).

Ripple was also a strong candidate for Crypto Twitter’s least favorite cryptocurrency, as 31 percent of respondents said that its investment thesis made the least sense among the four coins included in the survey. However, it finished a close second to tron, which received 32 percent of the vote. Ethereum Classic (20 percent) and bitcoin (17 percent) shared the remaining votes in this choice-limited poll.

Unsurprisingly, XRP was also the most polarizing cryptocurrency, and it earned that distinction by a wide margin. On Twitter, for instance, more than three-quarters of respondents said that XRP was either their favorite (46 percent) cryptocurrency or the one that made the least sense (31 percent).

Notably, the surveys also found that, although XRP is touted for the utility it supposedly offers banks and other financial services businesses, 28 percent of institutional investors said that its investment thesis made the least sense, and none selected it as their favorite cryptocurrency. XRP was institutional investors’ least favorite token by a fairly-considerable margin, with bitcoin finishing second at 17 percent. Other candidates receiving votes included tron, ethereum classic, bitcoin cash, cardano, EOS, litecoin, and tether.

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