Why crypto broke
Hey, it’s Marc & 51 team,
For 18 months, the crypto pitch to allocators was simple: ETFs brought in real money, regulation was coming, and Bitcoin had decoupled from degen retail. Mature asset class. Uncorrelated store of value. Digital gold.
Then three pipes burst at the same time: the U.S. Treasury sucked $200B out of bank reserves, Japan ended 30 years of free-money leverage, and AI’s hype cycle suddenly became a risk event, and Bitcoin did what “digital gold” isn’t supposed to do: it crash
Marc Baumann & Sangam Bharti· Feb 10, 2026· 8 min