Bit-splaining Bitcoin has some 'splaining to do.' So does the rest of the asset class. An early January rally failed (nothing kills a vibe like tariff talk). Gold and silver are speeding ahead, shiny as ever. ETH (whose performance leadership, we maintain, is essential for a broad crypto rally) can't hold $3,000, despite a line out the door for eager validators and healthy volumes. CoinDesk 20 can't hold 3,000 either. For an asset class entering (as we styled it last week) its sophomore year with regulatory and government support, we would like to see more energy. For the research heads, commentators, and pundits, these markets call for accountability, explanations, and revised outlooks. Here are a couple we found useful.
Mr. Wonderful Last week, CoinDesk's Jenn Sanasie and I spoke with Kevin O'Leary. His messages: forget about anything beyond BTC and ETH. This may be "talking his book," retreating in the face of altcoin underperformance, or just playing it safe. There is, undoubtedly, more potential alpha in altcoins and O'Leary claims to be an alpha guy. But it's hard to support smaller crypto assets these days, since they have such little price support. Mr. Wonderful also re-directed listeners to land, commodities, power and infrastructure, mostly only available through private vehicles.
Gold's uncomfortable lesson Greg Cipolaro cuts through the noise on gold's outperformance vs. bitcoin, identifying structural differences that matter. Bitcoin remains trapped in "risk asset" behavior, with its rolling 90-day correlation to U.S. equities sitting around 0.51. Gold benefits from decades of institutional precedent; bitcoin is still building its playbook. There's also a liquidity paradox. Bitcoin's 24/7 tradability — once celebrated as a feature — makes it the first thing sold when leverage unwinds. Noelle Acheson adds another dimension: gold hedges near-term chaos (tariff threats, geopolitical flare-ups), while bitcoin is better suited to hedging long-run monetary disorder that unfolds over years, not weeks. As long as markets believe current risks are dangerous but not foundational, gold wins. The narrative problem
My friend and former colleague Emily Parker framed the existential question in a tidy LinkedIn post: what is bitcoin's value proposition now? The "digital gold" branding meets its stress test when actual gold surges. Bitcoin's 21 million supply cap is real, but gold's scarcity feels more tangible — all the gold ever mined fits in a few swimming pools. Emily identifies a deeper irony: bitcoin's recent institutional adoption (ETFs, Wall Street embrace, regulatory acceptance) undercuts its origin story as independent of banks and governments. When your rally depends on intermediaries and the current administration, you've traded some of your founding mythology for mainstream credibility. That's a trade-off, not a triumph.
Clarity's crossroads
And everyone is laser-focused on the Clarity Act, the bolder observers calling its recent stumble an unforced error on the industry's part. Matt Hougan at Bitwise maps two paths forward. If the Clarity Act passes, markets will price in guaranteed growth of stablecoins and tokenization today. If it fails, crypto enters a "show me" period — three years to prove indispensability to everyday Americans and traditional finance. A tall order.
What Remains
We like the "fast money vs. slow money" framework for monitoring crypto's progress. The fast money, right now, appears to be on the sidelines (if it's not chasing shiny precious metals), watching Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs), FAFO/TACO brinksmanship, the Fed, and AI. The slow money keeps rolling, including recent announcements by ICE/NYSE on tokenization. Next week's Ondo Summit and, of course, Consensus HK will unveil many new projects.
As for today's crypto market, while uncomfortable, it may also be low risk, with bitcoin's 30-day volatility in the low 30's and CoinDesk 20's in the mid 40's. Wait and see. Wait and see.
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