Bloomberg Intelligence senior macro strategist Mike McGlone said Monday that the ongoing weakness in cryptocurrencies may be signaling deeper cracks in financial markets, cautioning that bitcoin could ultimately slide toward $10,000 and potentially foreshadow a U.S. recession.
Posting on X, McGlone argued that the “buy the dip” strategy that has underpinned risk assets since the 2008 financial crisis may be losing effectiveness as digital assets falter and volatility dynamics evolve.
Bitcoin had rebounded to $70,841 by 07:00 UTC on Feb. 15 after dipping to $65,395 on Feb. 12, but it was back near $68,800 by mid-morning. The broader crypto market remained under pressure, with 85 of the top 100 tokens trading lower. Privacy-focused monero and zcash declined 10% and 8%, respectively, over the past 24 hours.
“Healthy correction is what we should hear soon from stock market analysts (who risk unemployment if not onboard), following collapsing cryptos,” McGlone wrote, suggesting that the post-2008 dip-buying narrative could be nearing its end.
He pointed to extreme macro conditions as evidence of elevated risk. U.S. equity market capitalization relative to GDP has climbed to its highest level in about a century. Meanwhile, 180-day volatility in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 sits near eight-year lows — a combination he views as a potential warning sign.
McGlone also described the unwinding of what he termed a “crypto bubble” and said that “Trump euphoria” may have peaked, contributing to contagion effects across markets. At the same time, gold and silver are “grabbing alpha” at rates not seen in roughly 50 years, with rising volatility that he believes could spill over into equities.
He shared a chart plotting bitcoin — divided by 10 for scale — against the S&P 500, noting that both were hovering below 7,000 on his framework as of Feb. 13. In his assessment, bitcoin’s high-beta nature makes it unlikely to remain elevated if broader equity beta weakens.
As an initial “normal reversion” target, McGlone highlighted 5,600 on the S&P 500, which would correspond to roughly $56,000 for bitcoin under his scaling model. Beyond that, part of his base case envisions bitcoin retracing toward $10,000 if U.S. equities crest and reverse.
A contested outlook
Jason Fernandes, co-founder of AdLunam, pushed back on the bearish thesis, telling CoinDesk that McGlone’s argument assumes excesses must unwind through collapse and that bitcoin’s correlation with equities guarantees a proportional downturn.
“That’s false equivalence and single-path bias,” Fernandes said. “Markets can work off excess through time, rotation, or inflation erosion. A slowdown could mean consolidation or a reset to $40,000–$50,000, not necessarily a systemic collapse to $10,000.”
Fernandes added that a move toward $10,000 would likely require a genuine systemic shock, such as severe liquidity tightening, widening credit spreads, forced deleveraging across funds and a disorderly equity sell-off.
“That implies recession combined with financial stress, not just softer growth,” he said. “Absent a credit event or policy mistake that drains global liquidity, that type of collapse remains a low-probability tail risk.”
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