Thomas Lee said he has seen a boom in client interest in bitcoin since his boutique research firm first opened its doors eight years ago.

“The interest in bitcoin is very high,” the managing partner and the head of research at New York-based Fundstrat Global Advisors said at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami. “There's some FOMO,” he said, and more regulation “certainly changed the career risk that they think they are taking. But they think crypto is still too speculative, and that it is not legitimate.”

“What people overlook is there's actually not enough speculation in crypto,” Lee said.

Lee's comments come amid high interest in cryptocurrencies — which remain outside mainstream market rules and regulation — despite the ‘Wild West’ nature of the nascent asset class. According to the fund data provider Morningstar, cryptoasset volatility is in a “class all [of] its own”.