Bitcoin is currently moving around $87,000, in a phase of market stagnation. Mike McGlone, senior macro strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, is now taking a more cautious stance. He warns that the cryptocurrency could enter a post-inflation period marked by deflationary pressures, thereby changing its risk profile and reducing prospects for long-term gains. Once an optimist, McGlone now advises approaching potential 2026 rebounds as opportunities to sell, rather than opportunities to buy.
In brief
- Mike McGlone (Bloomberg Intelligence) warns that Bitcoin could enter a deflationary phase in 2026, affecting its long-term performance.
- He recommends a defensive approach by favoring safe assets such as US Treasuries.
- In a crisis, Bitcoin could fall as low as $10,000.
Bitcoin lags behind gold and silver
McGlone emphasizes that the economic conditions which favored the rise of Bitcoin since 2020 are no longer met. The environment at the time, characterized by easy access to capital and a marked appetite for risky investments, gave way to a context of growing tensions on the markets. In this context, speculative assets, including Bitcoin, become more exposed.
At the same time, the gap is widening between Bitcoin and traditional safe havens. While gold is hitting all-time highs, Bitcoin is struggling to regain momentum. For McGlone, this lag indicates that gold is already anticipating future economic turbulence, rather than reflecting an intrinsic weakness in the crypto sector.
The trend is even more striking on the raw materials side. Gold crossed the $5,100 per ounce mark, while silver experienced a spectacular surge, with an increase of around 270% over 13 months, compared to an 11% decline for Bitcoin. Result: the capitalization of money now reaches almost 3.5 times that of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin increasingly follows stock markets
According to McGlone, Bitcoin acts less as an independent safe haven and more as an asset correlated to equity markets. Far from countering macroeconomic trends, it tends to follow them, which makes it as exposed as high-risk securities to economic slowdowns and financial shocks.
As 2026 approaches, McGlone considers several scenarios for BTCwhose downward risks seem more likely than possible increases:
- Extreme scenario : a fall to $10,000, if Bitcoin falls back to its pre-bubble levels, in the event of a severe deflationary shock, an improbable hypothesis, but historically consistent.
- Moderate scenario : a return to around $50,000, if the markets remain uncertain without collapsing.
- Bullish scenario : major resistance around $100,000, the threshold that BTC will have to cross to reverse the trend.
On-chain data from Glassnode, which offers insight into current trends, indicates that Bitcoin is trading around $87,000. Short-term holders average an acquisition cost of $96,500, while active investors average $87,500. The average market price is estimated at $80,700, and the overall realized price reaches $56,000. Although the current price remains close to investor averages, these indicators reveal that Bitcoin's alignment with the overall market remains fragile.
Preparing for a defensive year in 2026
By broadening his analysis to the macroeconomic context, McGlone highlights several potential risks. He believes that a market slowdown is possible as the riskiest investments are liquidated, drawing parallels with the periods preceding the crash of 1929 or the financial crisis of 2008. In such a climate, digital assets could not only lose their hedging role, but accentuate losses.
With this in mind, McGlone recommends a defensive strategy for 2026, focused on safe havens such as US Treasury bills or cash. According to him, current conditions do not reflect a simple pause in an upward trend, but potentially herald a phase of deeper correction in the markets.
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