Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has seen better days, according to Bloomberg Intelligence's Mike McGlone. On Monday he argued the asset's "glory days are over," pointing to BTC falling below Strategy's (NASDAQ: MSTR) average cost basis as a sign that the best returns are behind it.
McGlone Says Bitcoin's Falling Volatility Weakens Its Bull Case
Speaking on The Wolf Of All Streets podcast, McGlone said Bitcoin's annualized volatility versus gold has dropped to its lowest level ever, roughly 1.1 to 1.2 times gold's volatility. That shift, he said, marks the end of the premium that justified owning Bitcoin in the first place.
He argued Bitcoin now needs the broader stock market to keep rising to perform well from here, since correlations across risk assets have tightened sharply this year.
McGlone pointed to a roughly $1 billion liquidation event Sunday that wiped out mostly long positions, following $1.28 billion in spot Bitcoin ETF outflows last week that flipped the funds negative for all of 2026.
The pattern mirrors what he has seen across commodities this year, with gold, silver, platinum, palladium, lead and natural gas all reversing after sharp earlier rallies.
Reidhead Counters With Bitcoin Resilience and Crypto Adoption
Milk Road's Kyle Reidhead isn't buying the obituary. He argued that Bitcoin's resilience through both the Binance hack and the Democratic midterm sweep, two events many expected to crush prices, signals there simply aren't many sellers left in the market.
He said crypto now shows real tailwinds tied to tokenization, agentic payments and stablecoin growth that didn't exist in prior cycles, distinguishing this environment from a pure speculative mania.
Moreover, Academy Securities' Peter Tchir said Bloomberg economist Anna Wong doesn't expect a December rate hike, even as prediction markets price roughly 77% odds of one, with Tuesday's CPI data likely deciding the outcome.
Reidhead added that easing oil prices and cooling Treasury yields suggest the macro backdrop is already starting to improve following last week's selloff.
Why the Rest of the Week Matters
McGlone said Bitcoin trading near $74,845 hasn't yet faced a real test of whether its bottom actually held, noting the token remains down 14% year to date despite holding well above February's 2026 low near $60,000.
He said a sustained 20% drawdown in the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) would be the signal that finally confirms his bearish thesis, something markets haven't delivered yet this year.
Reidhead also expects Bitcoin to dip into the low $70,000s before finding its footing, while still describing the setup as an early-stage bull market overall, directly at odds with McGlone's view that crypto's best days have already passed.
