- BTC trading $67,468, down ~6% on the day and through $70,000 for the first time since April
- Off roughly 45% from the October 2025 high near $128,000
- May was the worst month of the year for spot-ETF flows: ~$2.4 billion out the door
- Last week alone: ~$1.67 billion of crypto fund outflows, the second-worst week of 2026, Bitcoin funds doing a record ~$1.44 billion of that
- Strategy sold Bitcoin for the first time since 2022
- Crypto search interest sitting at a one-year low
Everything is up in 2026, except bitcoin.
The bitcoin bulls were once the 'smartest guys in the room' as prices soared ever-higher but young people don't see the allure of crypto and are instead investing in 0DTE options and AI stocks.
Who could blame them. Today it's Marvell that's up 30% after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said it will be the next trillion dollar company. Day after day, it's one name or the other jumping while bitcoin stagnates.
Today, bitcoin is down 4.7% to $67,068 and is trading at the lowest levels since early April, a time when equity markets were much lower. The catalyst for the latest round of selling is a $2.5 million sale from Michael Saylor at Strategy. That's more of a mechanical move rather due to preferred share mechanics than a view on the market but it's a reminder that he could face a liquidity crunch if prices go low enough.
The main problem from a price-action perspective is that bitcoin isn't participating in one of the greatest bull markets of all time. So what will happen when the tide goes out on stocks and AI?
Bitcoin is down 23.5% year to date and it's not because of fear, but boredom.
I just got back from South Africa and there was plenty of talk about crypto there but it was mostly about stablecoins and payments applications rather than bitcoin. To be fair, anything within that ecosystem is net-positive for bitcoin but it's nothing like what it was a few years ago.
Bitcoin has spent its entire life shape-shifting to fit whatever the moment needed. Inflation hedge. Digital gold. Uncorrelated diversifier. The high-beta bellwether of risk appetite. Pick a macro environment and there was a Bitcoin pitch deck for it.
The problem in 2026 is that it's failing all of them simultaneously, and you can watch it happen in real time.
Geopolitical risk-off around the Strait of Hormuz, Iran and Israel back in the headlines — classic safe-haven conditions. Gold sat there steady. Silver sat there steady. Bitcoin fell out of bed. So much for the hedge.
The real 'use case' for bitcoin was a 10x return and at $67K, that just doesn't seem likely anymore.
Ultimately, it's usually price action that writes narrative, not the other way around. Bitcoin can change gears again but I'm skeptical in medium term. The Trump administration was ultimate bull case for crypto and the returns since election day are now down to nil. Instead, the administration has turned crypto into a joke with MelaniaCoin and the like.
I also don't like the look of the huge head-and-shoulders pattern shaping up on the chart.
