Bitcoin crashed again recently, repeating a pattern we’ve seen at least a half dozen times. Often, these crashes are presented as a clash of worldviews between the believers who think Bitcoin is destiny and the skeptics who think it’s a fad (or worse). “The market is currently navigating a ‘crisis of faith,’ ” one asset manager told Bloomberg as Bitcoin prices fell.
But the more you look into the details, the clearer it is that what’s happening with Bitcoin actually looks a lot like crashes in all kinds of other markets: It has to do with debt—lots and lots of debt. Except Bitcoin’s debt problem is even worse. This is the one thing that bulls and bears agree on.
Bitcoin reached a total value of more than $2 trillion in 2025, with a high price of more than $120,000. It is now down to a little more than half that, which included one particularly disastrous week between late January and early February during which it lost a quarter of its value.
