Author: Jemima Kelly
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Deep Tide Guide: Bitcoin recently suffered its worst plunge since 2022, not only wiping out all gains made after Trump's election victory but also revealing the fragility behind the political红利. Author Jemima Kelly, borrowing a classic line from the film "La Haine," sharply讽刺 the crypto community's "spiritual victory" mentality during the crisis. Even with the U.S. having an unprecedented "Bitcoin President" who even listed it as a national strategic reserve, it still couldn't stop the selling wave.
The author believes that when this bubble, built entirely on "faith in others," begins to burst, and when the "greater fools" no longer appear, Bitcoin's fall will ultimately meet a brutal landing.
Full Text Below:
"This is the story of a man falling from a 50-story building. On his way down, passing each floor, he reassures himself by repeating: 'Jusqu’ici tout va bien (So far, so good), so far, so good, so far, so good.'"
This is the stunning opening of the 1995 French cult classic film "La Haine."
This text, this imagery, has for some reason been deeply imprinted on my consciousness, lasting a lifetime. Whenever I feel anxious or experience "imposter syndrome worries," they always comfort me. They suggest: since I haven't had any harm so far, maybe I can keep being this lucky.
And "so far," the salesmen and shamans of the Bitcoin world have also been fine.
Of course, Bitcoin has indeed experienced dozens of major crashes, hundreds or thousands of crypto companies may have gone bankrupt, countless people may have lost their life savings, but every time Bitcoin falls, it always rebounds.
Those who could afford to lose managed to hold on (those who couldn't afford to lose were washed out), and the cognitive muscle memory they gained from each rebound made them believe their sacred cryptocurrency would live forever.
Allow me to sensitively point out: it won't.
The excessive confidence of Bitcoin believers—or more accurately, the confidence they display that is necessary to keep the entire system running—has always been unfounded, irresponsible, and reckless. Since its birth, Bitcoin has embarked on a journey destined to end in "shattering on the ground."
This week, that "ground" is rapidly and clearly coming into view. Bitcoin suffered its worst crash since 2022, falling to near $60,000 on Friday, erasing all gains since Donald Trump's re-election in 2024, and falling more than half from its all-time high of over $127,000 last October.
According to Coinglass data, in just 24 hours from Thursday to Friday, about $1.25 billion worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated.
This sense of desperation and so-called "Cope" (crypto slang, implying someone is delusional, struggling to accept a painful reality) is clearly visible. "I have never been more bullish on crypto than I am right now," Coinbase's former CTO and famous crypto evangelist Balaji Srinivasan posted on X on Thursday, "because rule-based order is breaking down, and code-based order is rising. So short-term price doesn't matter." Of course he would say that.
Some have opted for self-deprecating nonsense.
Michael Saylor, the man who turned his company MicroStrategy into a tool for betting big on Bitcoin (the company holds over 713,000 BTC, about 3.4% of the total circulating supply), posted on Wednesday: "If you want to give me a birthday present, please buy some Bitcoin for yourself." Poor "birthday billionaire."
The next day, on the Q4 2025 earnings call—when the worst of the crash hadn't yet happened, but MicroStrategy still recorded a staggering $12.4 billion loss—Saylor tried a different persuasion tactic. He insisted: "I think the importance of gaining support for the industry and digital capital at the highest levels of the political structure cannot be underestimated." He noted that the U.S. now has a "Bitcoin President" committed to making America the "crypto capital of the world."
But this is what makes the crypto world very awkward. Because Saylor is right—the U.S. does indeed have the closest thing to a "Bitcoin President" in history, and this president's family has vested crypto interests. However, despite establishing a "strategic Bitcoin reserve," pardoning a number of convicted crypto criminals, allowing Americans to deposit cryptocurrencies into 401(k) retirement accounts, and claiming to have ended former President Biden's "war on crypto" within his first 200 days in office, Trump's presence in the White House still couldn't hold back the wave of selling. If Bitcoin cannot thrive in such an environment, when can it?
We may not have truly reached Bitcoin's final "death spiral"; I don't claim to know when that will happen. Trying to predict the end date of a speculative frenzy based purely on faith—or more specifically, based on "faith in others' faith"—is a daunting task. Bitcoin might have a few more final hurrahs (at the time of writing, it had rebounded to around $69,000).
But this faith is beginning to fade. This week's situation tells us that the supply of "greater fools" that Bitcoin relies on for survival is drying up. The fairy tales that keep cryptocurrency afloat are revealing their illusory nature. People are beginning to realize that for something built entirely on nothing, there is no floor to its value.
Ask yourself: Will this thing still exist in 100 years? Remember the line: "What matters isn't the fall, it's the landing."
So far, so good, so far, so good, so far...
