Bitcoin Plummets 24% in 46 Days as Crypto Falls on Rising Inflation (fastcompany.com) 52
October 3: $84,680
Today: $64,108
Bitcoin dropped 24.2% in 46 days. And it "fell more than 4% on Friday to $68,500," reports Fortune, "wiping out gains built over the past three months and casting doubt on whether its bear market was ever really over." The asset also faces weaker investor appetite, according to crypto analytics provider CryptoQuant. The firm's demand indicator recorded its weakest reading since December 2023, while Bitcoin exchange-traded funds became net sellers again. The recent downturn has also extended to other parts of the crypto market. That includes Tether's USDT, the largest cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, whose total value shrank by $7.7 billion over the past two months, according to CryptoQuant, a sign that less cash is available in crypto markets.
This time around, inflation has been the main culprit. Tuesday's Consumer Price Index report showed prices rose 0.4% in October, more than economists expected. Even stripping out food and energy, inflation ran hotter than forecast. Traders now overwhelmingly expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point in December, with some betting on an even bigger increase. "Because these are non-yielding assets, and we expect inflation to rise... people are chucking stuff like gold and Bitcoin to find... government bonds that are going up, providing you [with] income," Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at financial technology company IG Group, told Fortune...
Heavy borrowing and spending on AI have created what 21Shares calls an "AI black hole," drawing money toward the sector and away from assets like Bitcoin and gold. But Bitcoin remains "joined at the hip" with tech stocks, according to Beauchamp. That leaves it in an awkward position: It faces competition for investment dollars when enthusiasm for AI runs high, yet can get dragged down when that enthusiasm fades.
Fast Company points out Bitcoin "remains down more than 20% since the beginning of 2026." [Nvidia] has seen its shares lose more than 27% of their value over the past month. The tech sell-off seems to have dragged down the crypto markets, too, as the two sectors are, on some levels, intermingled... On top of that, outflows from Bitcoin funds may also be contributing to the slide. More than $1 billion in leveraged crypto positions were closed in recent days, which may have added to declining demand, affecting BTC prices.
Today: $64,108
Bitcoin dropped 24.2% in 46 days. And it "fell more than 4% on Friday to $68,500," reports Fortune, "wiping out gains built over the past three months and casting doubt on whether its bear market was ever really over." The asset also faces weaker investor appetite, according to crypto analytics provider CryptoQuant. The firm's demand indicator recorded its weakest reading since December 2023, while Bitcoin exchange-traded funds became net sellers again. The recent downturn has also extended to other parts of the crypto market. That includes Tether's USDT, the largest cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, whose total value shrank by $7.7 billion over the past two months, according to CryptoQuant, a sign that less cash is available in crypto markets.
This time around, inflation has been the main culprit. Tuesday's Consumer Price Index report showed prices rose 0.4% in October, more than economists expected. Even stripping out food and energy, inflation ran hotter than forecast. Traders now overwhelmingly expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point in December, with some betting on an even bigger increase. "Because these are non-yielding assets, and we expect inflation to rise... people are chucking stuff like gold and Bitcoin to find... government bonds that are going up, providing you [with] income," Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at financial technology company IG Group, told Fortune...
Heavy borrowing and spending on AI have created what 21Shares calls an "AI black hole," drawing money toward the sector and away from assets like Bitcoin and gold. But Bitcoin remains "joined at the hip" with tech stocks, according to Beauchamp. That leaves it in an awkward position: It faces competition for investment dollars when enthusiasm for AI runs high, yet can get dragged down when that enthusiasm fades.
Fast Company points out Bitcoin "remains down more than 20% since the beginning of 2026." [Nvidia] has seen its shares lose more than 27% of their value over the past month. The tech sell-off seems to have dragged down the crypto markets, too, as the two sectors are, on some levels, intermingled... On top of that, outflows from Bitcoin funds may also be contributing to the slide. More than $1 billion in leveraged crypto positions were closed in recent days, which may have added to declining demand, affecting BTC prices.
And nothing of value was lost (Score:5, Informative)
Literally.It's all on paper. You could probably derive the IQ of a HODL gambler from the trending values of cryptocurrency. I don't have the math skills, but I'm sure someone does.
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most likley they are people with an IQ of around 90-110 that think they are 190.
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Just sample a few of them, make them take a test and then take the average of the scores
Explaining it (Score:2)
The banking industry, Wall Street and government regulators need a new hyped financial product or innovation at all times.
If it is all business as usual with stocks, bonds, options and futures, the reason for them and the need for the millions of top 10% income wage earners in those areas declines.
Crypto had its 7 year hype cycle, the crypto hype team has moved onto the next big thing - AI.
It will be back (Score:2)
Once AI winter sets in, the herd will go back to crypto.
I thought it would be gone by now. But there is a critical mass of believers, and also just punters, that will come back when there are no other exciting options in the market.
Re: It will be back (Score:1)
Re: It will be back (Score:2)
Mood affiliation gambling (Score:3)
But I think we're about to discover how many trillion $ a good old government corruption and spies and sex story can destroy while crashing the LLM stupidity, so we'll find out.
Please explain, crypto boosters (Score:4, Interesting)
So please explain, crypto boosters and bros, how are world markets wrong this time? (They've managed to explain away every other hiccup so far.)
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A country doesn't have much of a bank account, it's pay as you go. When your exports crater, your imports crater ... the currency is downstream from the fundamentals.
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It inflated under Trump because corruption. Now it's deflating under Dems because investigations. The obvious part is obvious and the rest is speculation.
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It inflated under Trump because corruption. Now it's deflating under Dems because investigations. The obvious part is obvious and the rest is speculation.
Nope. Trump has his own crypto coin(s). It has nothing to do with bitcoin. By design, Bitcoin is independent of all governments.
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Bitcoin is as much a slave to government regulation as fiat currencies.
Nope. You confuse 3rd party exchanges with crypto. The crypto coins and their networks are not subject to government. A crypto user may be in the sense of tax reporting. But gov't can't do anything to the coin's network, as designed.
Trump was/is bitcoin friendly as it helps legitimise his grifting with crypto coins
Correlation not causation except for whatever that Trump coin was. As crypto thrived under Biden, under Obama.
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You seem to deny reality. There is no denying that crypto thrived under trump, whether you want to attribute that to his personal enrichment efforts or not, you can't really deny that it happened. (obviously you can if you're a hardcore trumpanista)
FTFY (Score:2)
There is no denying that crypto thrived under trump
"There is no denying that crypto grift thrived under trump"
There FTFY.
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It sounds like we agree? I'm not sure based on you're being unhinged.
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You seem to deny reality. There is no denying that crypto thrived under trump ...
Correlation not causation except for whatever that Trump coin was. As crypto thrived under Biden, under Obama.
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I don't remember Obama being anti-crypto, perhaps you would like to enlighten us.
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What I do remember is decades of rumors of crypto regulation and how they affected the price of BTC. But what do I know. SIgh.
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I don't remember Obama being anti-crypto, perhaps you would like to enlighten us.
Perhaps you could re-read and notice I said crypto thrived under Trump, Biden and Obama. That Bitcoin is beyond gov't control.
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And that's why investor sentiment for BTC and so its price isn't affected by government decisions or regulation.
False rumors affect prices too. Investors falsely thinking Bitcoin can be regulated by gov't does not make it so.
Oh wait, it is, and heavily so.
How so, and please don't bait-and-switch with crypto exchanges. They are a 3rd party tool, not part of the Bitcoin network.
And that's why tEh gUberMentS can't seize, restrain or freeze your BTC. Oh wait, they just did that for $1.2 billion worth following the Binance theft
You falsely conflate 3rd party exchanges with Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin's design actually expects users to manage their own wallets, not hand them off to some 3rd party.
A "greater fool" based high risk investment scheme (Score:5, Insightful)
W've been hearing for years that crypto, because of its fixed supply, was going to be an excellent hedge against inflation.
And those watching the charts have been noticing 75%'ish corrections (losses) after the big fast upward spikes. Then a long plateau at around 25% before the next enthusiasm fueled run up. Its mostly a "greater fool" based high risk investment scheme, faith that someone will eventually show up to buy it at a higher price than you.
Commercial use is an illusion. Sellers typically do pricing and sales strictly in fiat currency on their end. If someone shows up wanting to pay in crypto they are passed off to a crypto payment processor who handles verifying the crypto transfer. The crypto payment processor then credits the sellers account the exact amount of fiat currency the goods/service was priced at. Sellers never see or touch crypto, never experience any holding risk.
Amusingly, the person buying with crypto has created a complication for their taxes. Since crypto is considered an asset not a currency in many jurisdictions, they typically have to report a capital gains/loss on that crypto they used to buy that pizza. Needing to report the value of those coins at the time they acquired them and the value at the time of their transfer.
Crypto does have some utility as an alternative to wire transfers. Typically the sender buys the crypto to transfer, immediate transfers, the receiving party immediately sells for their local currency. In the minutes this takes there is minimal holding risk.
Re: Please explain, crypto boosters (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't believe this (Score:2)
BTC moves based off of nothing but belief, it's not tied to value of any currency and doesn't move with it. It's soley based off what people think it's worth.
Re: BTC moves based off of nothing but belief (Score:2)
The difference between it's "value" and pop-art/trading cards/etc. is that with the physical objects when the value fades you still have something to burn to keep you warm.
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Sticks rise and fall on projected earnings. I mean, you can generalize that to how friendly an administration is towards corruption and draw a cute little comparison of sorts, I suppose...
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Nah, it's the crypto bros
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I thought Lead was the doomsday currency.
Also everybody got a reminder (Score:5, Insightful)
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It feels like you're claiming that traditional banking is invulnerable to heists, and that's the sole reason we should prefer it to crypto. That might be true but it's a weird take even so.
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Insurance is a primary reason why people put their money in banks.
It feels gross to say that USD is more meaningful than BTC because it's backed by the US Government, but BTC is backed up by hopes and dreams (of apes.)
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Yeah if you're going to put corrupt pedophiles in charge of everything sure nothing is going to be stable or safe. But that goes for virtually everything. I mean Christ at that point your w
It could be (Score:2)
Basically we know how to stop the heists but it costs money and so we have enough regulations to prevent the worst of it that might impact the kind of people that matter but we still let
Inflation? Hogwash. (Score:2)
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Inflation makes prices go up, not down.
You seem to be using the old definition of "inflation", which is properly called monetary inflation or currency inflation. But the current accepted definition of inflation is a broad-based increase in the price of goods and services, the cause doesn't matter. This explains your confusion, and how you aren't on the same page as anyone else in this discussion. It is annoying that the meanings of words can change, but that's what happens when they aren't sufficiently specific to begin with. That's why making u
makes no sense (Score:2)
Seems to me that inflation would make crypto more valuable, if anything. Reasons it has fallen have nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with confidence.