Wall Street’s interest in bitcoin, like ICE’s Bakkt, isn’t boosting crypto prices — Quar…

Wall Street is steadily making it easier for a wider range of investors to buy and sell bitcoin. It’s a development that should, in theory, boost prices—if a torrent of institutional money is poised to rush into crypto, then the buildout of professional-grade infrastructure should be a boon for things like bitcoin, ether, and other offshoots. But so far that’s not the case:

Bitcoin has fallen more than 50% since Dec. 10, when Cboe Global Markets launched its futures contract, which allows traders to hedge or speculate on the digital asset’s price in the future. CME Group started its own bitcoin derivative seven days later. While crypto trading has been dogged by regulatory uncertainty, futures seem like a promising development because government watchdogs have given them their blessing and institutional investors are deeply familiar with these types of derivatives.

Likewise, Wall Street has shown a willingness to support bitcoin if the institutional demand is there. In…