oh noes. The current Bitcoin price exchange rate debacle is slowly dragging us below this wonderful 13-digit threshold... and tradfi journos are here for it!

BUT. This might have been the best summary of what's wrong with bitcoin, situated against the current macro backdrop and competing uses... and how NGU failed us, perhaps irrevocably.

It wouldn’t have seemed possible a year ago. But Bitcoin has gotten caught in one of its deepest struggles yet, with no obvious way out. [Bitcoin has...] plunged more than 40% from its peak, and the usual playbook isn’t working — dip buyers have vanished, and the forces that would normally fuel a rebound are now working against it. Gold is winning the macro-hedge argument. Stablecoins are winning payments. Prediction markets are winning speculation.

the stories that gave Bitcoin its gravitational pull — digital gold, freedom money, institutional reserve — are fraying simultaneously. Whether that’s a temporary crisis or permanent is one of the biggest questions in the digital-economy era.

We. Are. Beat.We. Are. Beat.

Nobody wants or needs this dying orange coin. (only partly sarcasm)

Washington has never been more accommodating. Institutional adoption has never been deeper. Wall Street has never been more bought in. Bitcoin got everything it wanted — and it wasn’t enough.

Basically my biggest question mark, the largest source of my disillusion. WTH is happening

"the defining struggle of this crypto era isn’t about price. It’s about purpose""the defining struggle of this crypto era isn’t about price. It’s about purpose"

forcing a question Bitcoin hasn’t needed to answer when prices were rising: if it isn’t the best hedge, the best payment rail or the best speculation — what, exactly, is it for?

YUP!

In Washington, stablecoins have become the center of gravity. The bipartisan Genius Act passed easily. Regulators are openly encouraging dollar-backed token infrastructure. Even within crypto, Bitcoin is no longer the sole focus. Tokenization, blockchain-powered derivatives and cross-border stablecoin payments are emerging as credible use cases — none of which require Bitcoin to function.

Even after years of “digital gold” hype, Bitcoin has failed its most important macro test. Despite geopolitical jitters and enduring dollar weakness, gold and silver have staged volatile rallies this year, while crypto has only gone down.

Oh, wow is this beautiful (and correct!)... good riddance on the treasury comps

Ironically, Bitcoin’s unraveling began during its own rise. The 2025 bull run triggered a rush of institutional infrastructure that was meant to cement its legitimacy. Instead, it stripped the asset of its mystique.
Once a cipher for libertarian escape, Bitcoin now resembles every other Wall Street instrument: a ticker in a drop-down menu, bundled with zero-day options and volatility products. What once required a rabbit hole now takes a brokerage login.

Well worth a read, well worth the reflection. What's your best stories of what went wrong with this 17-yo experiment, where it made a wrong turn?

Toward the end, the authors backtrack a bit and admit that Bitcoin miiiight survive:

Each time, the network endured and prices began to set new records. Resilience is not nothing. In an asset class littered with failures, simply surviving confers a kind of legitimacy.
The bull case isn’t that Bitcoin’s narratives are invincible. It’s that they don’t need to be — just durable enough to outlast each successive crisis of confidence. And history, so far, is on their side.
But history also shows that survival and relevance are not the same thing. Bitcoin’s greatest threat isn’t a competitor — it’s drift

archive: https://archive.md/lh6z8