Look at the big picture

Bitcoin never behaves the way people expect. This old idiom comes back as its price goes under levels not visited since last April.

Yes, last April.

You might have seen some panic on social channels, or even on 24/7 business news channels, questions regarding a potential bear market but the truth is we've seen this price not so long ago. The amnesia is remarkable. Six months feels like an eternity in crypto, which says more about our collective attention span than it does about Bitcoin's actual trajectory.

The script is always the same.  The "I told you so" crowd dusts off their bearish threads from 2022. Legacy financial journalists who haven't held Bitcoin for a single block cycle confidently declare the experiment over.

Yet, Bitcoin is surely dipping, there’s nothing to deny there. The question is: how low will we go? I'll let the wizards of technical analysis distill their sorcery, drawing their lines, measuring their Fibonacci retracements, consulting their moving averages like ancient augurs reading bird entrails. Before this dip, digital assets plateaued for a while, leaving equities paying investors. Now that equities are retreating, there are no reasons for crypto not to follow until… the Fed changes its stance radically, which may come under the form of the good old quantitative easing.

But more pain could be needed on this path. Markets have a way of extracting maximum psychological damage before reversing. Now, could lower prices change anything fundamental about the asset itself? 

Bitcoin is still one of the most scarce assets in the world. Its issuance schedule didn't suddenly accelerate because the price dropped. The 21 million cap didn't expand. The network didn't become less secure. If anything, hashrate continues climbing, mining difficulty keeps adjusting upward, and the infrastructure supporting the network grows more robust by the day.

And in many regions, there are good chances that your national currency is weakening. 

The Infrastructure thesis

Backstage, something far more important is happening: a growing number of financial institutions are exploring digital infrastructure. Bitcoin is entering “its utility phase”, as David Marcus said in last week’s interview. His company, Lightspark, is using Bitcoin's Lightning Network to navigate fiat currencies for the likes of Revolut and Sofi. These aren't crypto-native companies experimenting with blockchain for the sake of it but mainstream fintech platforms with millions of users solving real friction in money movement. Bitcoin isn't the destination in these transactions; it's the rail. The user sends dollars, the recipient receives euros, and Bitcoin facilitates the swap in seconds with minimal fees. That's utility.

Western Union — yes, the 172-year-old money transfer behemoth — will use Solana for its stablecoins infrastructure. Whether you're a Solana believer or skeptic is irrelevant. What matters is that a company built on telegraphs and wire transfers now considers blockchain infrastructure essential to its next chapter. CashApp is launching stablecoin transfer features. Not "considering it." Not "exploring it." Launching it. For their user base that measures in the tens of millions.

And it's not just tech companies. Sovereign wealth funds from Abu Dhabi and Luxembourg have exposure. These are the most conservative institutional capital allocators on Earth, the ones managing generational wealth for literal nations.

The quiet accumulation

The narrative around institutional adoption has been exhausted to the point of meaninglessness, but that doesn't make it less true.Let's talk about what actually matters for the next 12 to 24 months. Central banks globally are in an impossible position. Inflation remains sticky despite aggressive rate hikes. Growth is slowing. Debt levels across developed economies are at peacetime records. The political will for austerity is nonexistent.

The playbook is obvious: many analysts believe monetary policy could loosen in future cycles. The Fed will pivot. Not because they want to, but because they'll have to. Quantitative easing will return under a different name: it always does. The real risk is not volatility but debasement.Every cycle has brought the same emotional arc: euphoria, complacency, denial, panic, capitulation, and eventually, recovery. We're somewhere in the middle of that cycle now. Where exactly? Doesn't matter. What matters is whether the fundamental thesis holds.

Bitcoin never behaves the way people expect. Which is exactly why it has remained resilient over time.