So I'm sitting here this morning with Coinbase open in one tab and my RSS reader open in the other, and Bitcoin is bouncing around just above $100k again after actually dipping under that line a few days back for the first time since June. Back in early October this thing touched something like $126k. That's a 20-something percent drop in a month, and I don't think most people outside the crypto-brained corners of the internet have even noticed.
I noticed because my friend Dave texted me at 11pm on a Tuesday with just "lol" and a screenshot of his portfolio. Dave bought in during the 2021 run, held through the FTX collapse like a stubborn mule, and has spent the last four years telling anyone who'll listen that he's "up overall, actually." He's technically still right. But watching him do math out loud over text, trying to figure out his cost basis on a position he opened at three different price points, is not a productive use of anyone's Tuesday night.
Here's the thing that actually gets me about this slide though: it's not happening in isolation. It's happening at the exact moment every tech outlet on earth is running some version of "is the AI bubble about to pop" as their lead story, and there's a real feedback loop between those two narratives whether people want to admit it or not. Nvidia and Palantir have both had rough stretches the last couple weeks. Money that flowed into "the future" all year is suddenly a lot more interested in whether that future can actually pay its power bill. Crypto usually gets treated as a separate universe from AI stocks, but when the same handful of funds are long both, a bad week for one starts looking like a bad week for the other.
Meanwhile, on a completely different planet, Tesla shareholders voted on Thursday to approve Elon Musk's new pay package, the one that could be worth something on the order of a trillion dollars if he hits a truly absurd string of milestones over the next decade. Something like three quarters of shareholders voted yes. I keep trying to hold both of these stories in my head at once — markets nervous enough to knock a fifth off Bitcoin's value in a month, but also relaxed enough to hand one guy a trillion-dollar comp package on a vote — and I can't quite make them fit into a single coherent mood. Maybe that's just what markets are, though. Not one mood. A few million people all reacting to slightly different things at slightly different speeds.
I don't own much crypto myself, for what it's worth. I bought a tiny amount of Bitcoin in 2017 as a "why not" purchase, mostly forgot the wallet existed for years, and it's currently worth enough that I feel obligated to check on it but not enough that checking on it changes my day. Which honestly might be the healthiest possible relationship to have with the stuff. Dave would disagree. Dave has feelings about this. Dave has had feelings about this since roughly 2018 and shows no sign of running out.
What I keep coming back to is how quiet this whole slide has been compared to how loud the run-up was. When Bitcoin was pushing toward six figures for the first time back in 2024, it was everywhere: group chats, dinner conversations, that one uncle. Now it's dropped a real chunk of its value in a matter of weeks and outside of finance Twitter it's barely registering. I don't know if that means people have gotten more mature about volatility or just more tired. Possibly both. Possibly neither, and it'll all be front page again the second it crosses back over $100k going the other direction, which knowing this asset, could be next Tuesday.
Anyway. If your portfolio is having a rough week, you're not alone, and if it isn't, ask your friend Dave how his is doing. He'll tell you. At length.