Bloomberg Intelligence macro strategist Mike McGlone said on Monday that a plunge in cryptocurrency prices could be a sign of broader financial stress and warned that Bitcoin could return to $10,000 and could herald the next U.S. recession.
McGlone also said in a post on X that the long-term “buy the dip” mentality that has supported risk assets since 2008 may collapse as digital assets weaken and volatility dynamics change.
Bitcoin was hovering around $68,800 by mid-morning after recovering to $70,841 at 07:00 UTC on February 15 from $65,395 later on February 12. The broader cryptocurrency market also posted losses on Monday, with 85 of the top 100 coins in the red. Privacy-focused coins monero and zcash have fallen by 10% and 8% respectively in the past 24 hours.
“In the wake of the crypto crash, we’ll soon be hearing from stock market analysts about a healthy correction (who risk losing their jobs if they don’t join in),” McGlone wrote. “The buy-the-dip mantra from 2008 may be over.”
McGlone pointed to several macro indicators that reflect elevated risk conditions. He noted that U.S. stock market capitalization relative to gross domestic product (GDP) has reached its highest level in about a century. Meanwhile, 180-day volatility for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 is at its lowest level in about eight years, McGlone added.
He also described the “crypto bubble” as an “implosion,” adding that “Trump excitement” has reached its peak and is causing contagion throughout the market. Meanwhile, gold and silver are “grabbing alpha” at a rate roughly half a century ago, and he said rising volatility could “spread” into equities.
McGlone shared a chart comparing Bitcoin scaled by 10 to the S&P 500. As of February 13, both were hovering below 7,000 on his chart. He said that if broader stock market beta weakens, Bitcoin, which is “volatile and beta-dependent,” is unlikely to remain above that level.
The Bloomberg analyst identified 5,600 points on the S&P 500 as the initial “return to normal” level, equivalent to a Bitcoin price of about $56,000 under his adjustment. Beyond that, part of his base case calls for Bitcoin to recover to $10,000, contingent on a peak in U.S. stocks.
McGlone’s outlook divided
Jason Fernandes, co-founder and market analyst at AdLunam, told CoinDesk that McGlone’s paper assumes that market extremes must be resolved by crashes, and that Bitcoin’s stock beta guarantees a certain percentage of crashes.
“It’s false equivalence and single-path bias,” Fernandez said. “Markets can also work out excess through time, rotation or inflationary erosion. A macro slowdown could mean consolidation or a $40,000 to $50,000 reset rather than a systemic easing to $10,000.”
Fernandez added that a move toward $10,000 would likely require truly systemic events, including a sharp contraction in liquidity, widening credit spreads, forced deleveraging by funds, and disorderly equity drawdowns.
“That means a recession coupled with financial stress, not just slower growth,” he said. “Absent a credit shock or policy error that depletes global liquidity, such a collapse remains a low-probability tail risk.”
