Bitcoin, the world’s largest virtual asset, has fallen into an unprecedented identity crisis and is unable to escape its deep hole. On Upbit, the price was 99 million won on the 23rd (KST) as the psychological Maginot line collapsed. Based on CoinMarketCap, it hovered around $67,500, with market capitalization shrinking about 40% from its peak. Over the past three months, more than $16 billion has flowed into U.S.-listed gold and gold-related ETFs, while about $3.3 billion has been withdrawn from Bitcoin spot ETFs, according to Bloomberg data.
The hardest hit is the belief that Bitcoin is a ‘digital gold’ and an excellent macroeconomic hedge tool. Real gold and silver have rallied amid geopolitical unrest and continued dollar weakness, but Bitcoin has fallen endlessly. Tom Essay, president of Sevens Report, said that ‘People are realizing that Bitcoin is only a volatile speculative asset after all’.
Payments have shifted toward stablecoins, while speculation has moved to predictive markets. Even Jack Dorsey, once a Bitcoin evangelist, endorsed stablecoins on his Cash App, and dollar-linked stablecoins anchor cross-border payments and ecosystems, giving little incentive to use Bitcoin for payments. Predictive markets, where real-world results can be bet on quickly, are replacing Bitcoin’s speculative appeal, and Bitcoin’s crisis began as Wall Street’s financial infrastructure matured around spot ETFs, with risks from 100-fold leverage weighing on prices.
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