Last week, we looked at whether United States lawmakers could drive a rebound in the beaten-down Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) price.
That followed news that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expected that the nation's crypto regulating Clarity Act was nearing potential Congressional approval.
If passed, the Clarity Act will give the SEC and the CFTC departments oversight into crypto trading. This could fully open the door to trading in cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) in US stock markets.
So far, however, that news has failed to light a fuse under either of the world's top two cryptos.
In afternoon trade on Wednesday, Bitcoin – the world's first and biggest crypto by market cap – is trading for US$65,138. That's up a slender 0.7% since last Monday.
And the Bitcoin price remains down a sharp 48.4% since trading for a record high of US$126,198 on 7 October.
Ethereum has enjoyed a slightly stronger week, gaining 3.6% since last Monday to currently be trading for US$1,942.
But the world's number two crypto by market cap is still down 60.8% from its own all-time high of US$4,954, notched on 25 August 2025.
With these steep losses in mind, and the results from the latest crypto survey conducted by The Urban Institute, the long-awaited cryptocurrency rebound may be some time coming yet.
Image source: Getty Images
Are the chances of a Bitcoin price rebound fading?
In a survey completed by 3,194 people, The Urban Institute reported that around 17% of US adults own or have owned cryptocurrency.
But as a potentially concerning sign for investors awaiting a rebound in the prices of Ethereum and Bitcoin, only 9% of those investors still own crypto today. That means almost half of all former investors are now sitting on the sidelines.
Of the former crypto owners who no longer own the digital tokens, 32% said the top reason they'd stopped investing was due to losing money. Other concerns included excessive price volatility (28%) and concerns about security (also 28%).
Commenting on the impact of the big decline in the Bitcoin price since the October highs, Caleb Silver, editor in chief of Investopedia said (quoted by USA Today):
By definition, that means that people are selling. And that likely means that people who may have experimented in buying it have decided that they don't want to own it anymore, because they've seen the price crash…
There are many investors who bought crypto over the last 15 years who were simply chasing price.
The Motley Fool's Alex Carchidi added:
There's not a big wave of new crypto investors. And in fact, many of the professional crypto investors … have been leaving the market or hibernating in some way since the market collapsed in October.
