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As Hong Kong begins another trading day, BTC is trading below $89,000, down nearly 5% on-day amid geopolitical risk and bond market selloff.
Bitcoin is squirming in pain. As precious metals post one of their strongest rallies in decades and volatility spikes across silver and gold markets, bitcoin has spent much of the last half-year grinding sideways, pinned below its highs even as institutional ownership continues to deepen.
That divergence, according to XBTO CEO Philippe Bekhazi, is not a sign of fading conviction. It is the defining feature of bitcoin’s institutional era. Bitcoin, he argues, is no longer trading like a frontier asset.
“There’s a difference between Bitcoin and what we call crypto,” Bekhazi said in an interview with CoinDesk, describing BTC as an asset whose narrative is “crystallizing” as it matures.
The shift has consequences for how the market behaves. The era of venture-style upside, marked by explosive rallies and reflexive volatility, is largely over.
“We’re past the sort of venture phase of Bitcoin, massive returns,” Bekhazi said, likening the current phase to a post-IPO market where institutions prioritize stability, liquidity, and risk management over raw beta. As regulated vehicles, corporate treasuries and derivatives markets absorb supply, volatility compresses, and price action becomes less dramatic.
That does not mean the long-term thesis for bitcoin has changed.
Bekhazi remains clear that demand is still the dominant macro driver, pointing to structurally rising ETF and institutional inflows amid a fixed, predictable bitcoin supply. That imbalance, he argues, continues to anchor long-term valuation even if near-term price action feels muted.
Where returns are generated, however, has shifted. Bekhazi pointed to episodes like October’s tariff-driven liquidation cascade, when more than $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out across crypto markets, as evidence that institutional activity now centers on risk transfer rather than outright direction.
“We have large investors who often want exposure to bitcoin, but they need to protect themselves against sharp drawdowns,” he said.
At the same time, the fragmented structure of crypto markets – "a pure idiosyncratic issue of an exchange" was an accelerant to the October crash Bekhazi said – continues to amplify these dislocations.
That structure, he argued, allows active managers to step in as liquidity providers when liquidation-driven price gaps emerge, capturing alpha from market microstructure even as bitcoin’s long-term fundamentals remain intact.
The 'refuge currency'
Gold’s resurgence fits cleanly into this framework. Bekhazi said he expected capital to rotate from bitcoin into gold as macro stress intensified, particularly among investors with concentrated bitcoin exposure.
Gold, he noted, remains “the refuge currency of the world when things don’t go right,” especially for governments and central banks that lack the liquidity and mandate to move size into bitcoin quickly.
That rotation, in his view, is cyclical rather than existential. He emphasized in the interview that relative valuation over absolute prices, arguing that the bitcoin-to-gold ratio matters more than headline performance. Gold absorbs urgency and scale first. Bitcoin, by contrast, is increasingly treated by institutional investors as a balance sheet asset whose value proposition unfolds over longer horizons.
Bekhazi was also explicit about what would break the thesis.
If bitcoin were to trade as a high-beta tech asset during periods of inflation or crisis, the digital gold narrative would fail. Sustained ETF outflows during a routine 20% correction would signal weak institutional hands. And rising prices alongside collapsing on-chain activity or stablecoin usage would suggest an institutional era built on speculation rather than utility.
While the past 24 hours of bitcoin price action have been anything but quiet, for now, markets are testing whether bitcoin can remain calm while gold absorbs macro stress. Whether that underperformance proves to be maturation or mispricing will define the next phase of the cycle.
Market Movement
BTC: Bitcoin slid below $89,000 as a Japan bond selloff and renewed U.S. tariff threats triggered a broad risk-off move, with derivatives data showing traders leaning into shorts rather than aggressive spot selling.
ETH: Ether fell below $3,000 and underperformed bitcoin as heavy spot selling drove a roughly 7% daily drop, signaling weaker conviction and less defensive positioning than in BTC during the risk-off move.
Gold: Gold and silver continue to push through record highs as LBMA’s 2026 forecast survey turned the most bullish this century, with analysts projecting average gold prices up nearly 40% from 2025 and silver nearly doubling after both metals’ biggest forecast misses on record last year.
Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 slid 1.28% as Asia-Pacific markets broadly fell, tracking Wall Street’s worst session in three months after President Donald Trump escalated tariff threats tied to Greenland, rattling global risk sentiment even as U.S. stock futures edged slightly higher in early Asian trade.
Elsewhere in Crypto
- Massachusetts judge poised to tell Kalshi to stop taking sports bets in state (CoinDesk)
- CFTC Faces Tough Crypto Mandate With Fewer Staff, Inspector General Says (Decrypt)