With cryptocurrencies’ multi-month slowdown accelerating into a free fall last week, bulls were frantically searching for technical signals, or perhaps stories about some leveraged hedge fund blowup, that could signal a final bottom to this bear market.
Perhaps the definitive sign of a bottom, however, could be the cheers emerging from those who have been staunchly bearish on Bitcoin. as its price rose from $0 to over $100,000 over its 16-year lifespan.
Over the years, the Financial Times has surely stood above all traditional publications in its staunch opposition to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The London paper’s team of truly talented writers have apparently never wavered from their firm stance on not accepting coins, and this week was their moment.
“Bitcoin is still too high at around $69,000,” was the headline of a Sunday essay by Jemima Kelly of the Financial Times that beautifully summed up Kelly and the Financial Times’ overall stance over the past decade. [The FT subsequently changed the headline to “$70,000 too high” after bitcoin rose overnight].
“Since its creation, bitcoin has been on a journey that will end, scattered on the ground,” Kelly wrote. “This week has shown us that the supply of ‘big suckers’ that Bitcoin depends on is drying up,” he continued. “The fairy tales that have kept cryptocurrencies afloat are turning out to be just that. People are starting to wake up to the fact that there is no floor to the value of anything based on nothing more than air.”
Earlier in the week, with the price of bitcoin falling below treasury giant BTC Strategy’s (MSTR) $76,000 average cost basis, the Financial Times’ Craig Coben posted: “The strategy’s long road to nowhere.”
With the stock already down about 80% from its late-2024 all-time high, Coben stated in February 2026: “Management has no safe options, just different paths to destroy shareholder value…it’s hard to see the case for buying a vehicle that has simply broken even on its investments for five years.”
“Like a gigantic mastodon trapped in the tar pits of La Brea,” Coben concluded. “The strategy seeks a way out.”
Peter Schiff joins
With gold – despite a lot of recent volatility – continuing in a major bull cycle, Peter Schiff, a long-time critic of gold and bitcoin, was also feeling his oats.
“According to Michael Saylor, bitcoin is the best performing asset in the world,” he wrote on Tuesday. “However, Strategy invested over $54 billion in bitcoin over the past five years, and so far the company has lost about 3% on that investment. I’m sure the losses over the next five years will be much greater!”
“Bitcoin below $76,000 is now worth 15 ounces of gold, down 59% from its November 2021 high,” Schiff continued. “Bitcoin is in a long-term bear market with a gold price.”
Other signs
“I refuse to hit rock bottom,” former hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry once said. “Monkeys spend all their time picking up butts.”
As Hendry pointed out, it’s probably a good idea not to be too sympathetic when timing purchases with headlines like those seen in the Financial Times this week. However, it’s probably pretty safe to say that some sort of bottoming process is underway.
In other news this week that would never appear near the highs, investor interest in Tether appears to be evaporating. With the cryptocurrency market still buoyant late last year, the giant stablecoin issuer was reported to be in talks to raise between $15 billion and $20 billion at a valuation of up to $500 billion.
However, according to a Financial Times report on Tuesday, investors appear to be rejecting that valuation, and capital-raising efforts may only be on the order of about $5 billion.
For his part, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told the Financial Times that original reports of a capital raise of between $15 billion and $20 billion were a “misconception” and that Tether had received a lot of interest for that $500 billion valuation.
However, according to the report, investors have privately expressed concern about that high valuation. Things are fluid, the report continued, and a cryptocurrency rally could quickly change sentiment.
