The recent surge in crypto prices appears to be fueled by individual traders making impulsive decisions rather than being driven by institutional investors or market fundamentals, according to JPMorgan analysts.

"Similar to equities, we find that the retail impulse into crypto rebounded in February, thus likely responsible for this month's strong crypto market rally," JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a note on Thursday.

The GMCI 30 Index — representing the performance of the top 30 cryptocurrencies — has risen over 13% year-to-date.

Retail impulse

The analysts said retail impulse is evident from analyzing on-chain cumulative bitcoin flows, distinguishing between small and large wallets, and adjusting for inflows into new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. …