Bitcoin’s latest selloff has energized some of its most entrenched critics, even as traders debate whether the market is nearing the end of its current downturn.
The decline accelerated a months-long slide into a sharp capitulation phase, sending bulls hunting for bottoming signals — from technical indicators to forced liquidations tied to leveraged players. Yet historically, one of the more telling signs that a bottom may be forming is the renewed confidence of bitcoin’s longtime bears.
The Financial Times has long been among the most consistent skeptics of bitcoin and the broader crypto market. Despite bitcoin’s rise from zero to six-figure prices over its 16-year history, the paper’s editorial stance has remained firmly negative. That posture was memorably on display in 2025, when columnist Katie Martin quipped that her teeth should be worth billions, given their greater scarcity than bitcoin.
This weekend, the FT reiterated that view. In a Sunday column, Jemima Kelly argued that “Bitcoin is still about $69,000 too high,” a headline later revised to “$70,000 too high” after a modest overnight rebound. Kelly wrote that bitcoin’s path would ultimately end “splattered on the ground,” asserting that the supply of “greater fools” sustaining prices is drying up and that investors are beginning to recognize the lack of any intrinsic valuation floor.
Earlier in the week, as bitcoin fell below the roughly $76,000 average cost basis of Strategy’s BTC holdings, the FT also turned its attention to the company formerly known as MicroStrategy. In a piece titled “Strategy’s long road to nowhere,” columnist Craig Coben argued that management has no safe options remaining, only “different paths to destroying shareholder value.” With Strategy shares down around 80% from their late-2024 peak, he likened the firm to a mastodon trapped in the La Brea tar pits.
Longtime bitcoin critic and gold advocate Peter Schiff joined the chorus. With gold continuing to outperform amid recent volatility, Schiff challenged claims that bitcoin remains the best-performing asset of the modern era. He noted that Strategy has spent more than $54 billion buying bitcoin over the past five years and is now slightly underwater on that investment. Priced in gold, Schiff added, bitcoin is down nearly 60% from its 2021 highs and remains in a long-term bear market.
Former hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry once cautioned against trying to call exact bottoms, remarking that “monkeys spend all their time picking bottoms.” Even so, the renewed assertiveness of entrenched bitcoin bears has historically tended to emerge closer to market lows than peaks.
Other developments this week reinforce that signal. Investor appetite around Tether appears to be cooling. Late last year, reports suggested the stablecoin issuer was exploring a $15 billion to $20 billion capital raise at valuations approaching $500 billion. According to a Financial Times report this week, investor pushback has since reduced those ambitions to closer to $5 billion.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told the FT that reports of a larger fundraising effort were a “misconception” and said the company has seen strong interest at the higher valuation. Still, the report noted that private concerns over valuation remain, even as sentiment could shift quickly if crypto markets rebound.
