Bitcoin Has Lost Nearly Half Its Value in 11 Months (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0183823222
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/14/0817238/bitcoin-has-lost-nearly-half-its-value-in-11-months
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/12/bitcoins-price-drop-is-forcing-investors-to-revisit-why-they-own-it.html
> While previous bitcoin selloffs were often followed by large rebounds in price, the latest decline may prompt some investors to revisit why they own bitcoin in the first place, [says Daniel Sotiroff, associate director of ETF and Passive Strategies Research at Morningstar]. Here's what he and other experts have to say about the case for holding crypto, and how much exposure is appropriate for the average investor...
>
> Not all financial professionals agree bitcoin belongs in a portfolio. Bitcoin differs from stocks, bonds and real estate because it doesn't generate earnings, interest payments or rental income that investors can use to estimate its value, says Robert Johnson, a finance professor at Creighton University. Instead, its price is largely determined solely by investor demand. "You cannot invest in Bitcoin, you can only speculate," he says.
>
> Sotiroff agrees that bitcoin is difficult to value using traditional financial metrics. "The best analogy I've heard is that it's more like a collectible, because it's basically worth what other people are going to pay for it," he says.
Sotiroff told CNBC the recent selloff was a reminder that bitcoin's gains can be accompanied by equally dramatic declines — one reason many financial planners recommend limiting exposure to a small portion of a broader portfolio. "You just really can't make a call on what direction it's going to go," says Sotiroff.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/12/bitcoins-price-drop-is-forcing-investors-to-revisit-why-they-own-it.html
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/bitcoin-hits-new-all-time-high-above-120000-fueled-by-etf-inflows-crypto.html
Wait what (Score:2)
"Bitcoin has lost nearly half its value since reaching a record high above $123,000 in July 2025."
Wait, so the imaginary, ever-inflating fake fantasy 'money' is wildly unstable and subject to crazy valuation swings without any rhyme or reason?
Sounds awesome, sign me up!
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine tying your country's monetary policy to it (that's the dystopian dream of many cryptobros). Wake up as Switzerland, go to bed as Zimbabwe.
The search for the greater fool came to an end (Score:2)
Ye olde stories of mooning in a bygone era can't sucker people into it any more, especially when AI companies actually mooned while Bitcoin didn't.
Bitcoin is not a convincing lottery ticket any more and that was all people were ever interested in.
Re: The search for the greater fool came to an end (Score:3)
AI is the new bitcoin/blockchain, if you're not on the bandwagon, you stand to lose out :/
At least fiat currencies are backed by a nation, you can see if a nation has inflation and currency will be worth less in the future. What does bitcoin have? I regard them the same way as NTF's and classic cars, it's only worth as much as someone will pay.
Re: (Score:2)
> Bitcoin absolutely was a lottery ticket. In much the same way 401ks are.
This right here confirms you are incompetent to give financial advice.
Re: (Score:2)
>> Bitcoin absolutely was a lottery ticket. In much the same way 401ks are.
> This right here confirms you are incompetent to give financial advice.
I'll try and remember that when the Stock Market House of Cards topples over under the sheer weight of..expert financial advice.
Again.
It'll only be the fourth fucking time I've had to survive it. Along with many others who assume plebian-grade financial advice is anywhere near as good as the crystal ball now issued to every Insider Trading member of Congress thanks to Pelosi's Law governing Stock Market stability.
Still think those are financial experts? Perhaps we bet on it. What's another c-note dumpe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
401ks have fundamentals behind them (comprised of companies that make products and services that people want to buy, generally as repeat-buys)
Governments have fundamentals (the ability to levy taxes, backed by the full force of the courts, the police, and ultimately, the military)
Bitcoin has no fundamentals. It's a collectible. Its value is based purely how much people want that collectible. The only reason, as was stated, that people were buying it was as a lottery ticket. But there is no reason to "own"
Re: (Score:3)
> It's a collectible. Its value is based purely how much people want that collectible.
It's Beanie Babies.
Re: (Score:2)
>> It's a collectible. Its value is based purely how much people want that collectible.
> It's Beanie Babies.
Given it's insanely high valuation, I'd put it more akin to high value art that in many cases isn't high in value or even artistic. But is treated as such for launder, er I mean tax mitigation purposes for those who boug, er I mean contributed a political donation to the creation of those IRS deduction rules..which said 'donation' is unsurprisingly also tax-deductable..
When the Babies shit their Beans all over the valuation bed, no one on Wall Street was left bent over holding the bag. Apples vs. hand gre
Nothing backs it (Score:4, Informative)
There is no reason bitcoin can't slide back to being worth a dollar a coin. There no guarantee of value behind it. You can argue about whether fiat money is any better once the US went off the gold standard, but there is still a bit of irreplaceable value there; "the full faith and credit" means you can use it to transact business with the government, both by contracting to do public works for which the government pays you, and paying taxes and fees which are used to perform government functions and give you tokens such as licenses which show that you've contributed your share. Money's very liquidity for these purposes is a source of value, even if you can't redeem your picture of a President for precious metal. By contrast, Bitcoin literally isn't worth anything unless you can find someone (for some reason the phrase "bigger fool" comes to mind) to trade you something for it that does have value.
Re: (Score:1)
Price of silver has also dropped about 50% since it's peak in January. Yet, silver is valuable as both a monetary metal and industrial metal.
50% drop in the value of an asset is not that unusual.
If you have assets, you are wise to spread them out because anyone of them can underperform or fail. If you want to put 2% of your portfolio into BTC, you can only get burnt by 2% by that decision. If you invest in pre-IPO stock, you should limit percentages because risk of failure is high though returns can be spec
Re: (Score:2)
> Yet, silver is valuable as both a monetary metal and industrial metal.
Unlike bitcoin. You summed it up nicely right there.
Right now, I want to buy tin-silver alloy, to use in casting. But the prices of both tin and silver are insanely expensive right now. So I'm not buying now. If the prices go down? I'll buy. If they go down a lot? I'll buy a lot, perhaps even to sell on my sales website. And this buying is to *use* it. Which takes it off the market. There are fundamentals behind silver.
There are no
Re: (Score:2)
> Price of silver has also dropped about 50% since it's peak in January. Yet, silver is valuable as both a monetary metal and industrial metal. 50% drop in the value of an asset is not that unusual.
Bitcoin has a lot in common with precious metal investment. Volatile AF.
However, it is extremely unlikely that gold, silver or platinum will ever be worthless. Bitcoin could.
The whole aim of bitcoin is to get as many people to exchange their dollars for it, then the chosen few in real control begin the selloff. Pump and dump. And so far, there are plenty enough "greater fools" to keep it going.
Re: (Score:2)
The exchanges very livelihood depends on the credibility of Bitcoin. So they will backstop it at the line in the sand, 60k, and can keep that up for very long.
Re: (Score:1)
Money is pretty similar, if people don't want it the value collapses to nothing, but the difference is there are evil entities constantly reducing its value. If the value of the dollar goes up they force it to go down so people get poorer, suffer, and die.
Re: Nothing backs it (Score:2)
Money is backed by violence. As in if you donâ(TM)t give the government its money, even from the value of your bartering, it will use violence on you. That alone gives it value.
Re: (Score:3)
And also an inflationary currency is a very bad thing .
For one, it screws over debtholders (aka, most people), as the value of the debt owed grows instead of declining. If you work for a company making lumber, and a given board sells for $10 now, but 20 years from now sells for $5, and you sell the same number of boards per unit labour with the same relative margin, then all else being equal, your salary must be half in 20 years what it is today. But that mortgage that you took out today for $200k is still
Re: (Score:3)
> And also an inflationary currency is a very bad thing .
I agree with your points completely, but just as a pedantic note, when the value of a currency increases, this is deflation , not inflation. Inflation is when the price of goods, measured in currency, increases. So if the price of currency goes up, that's negative: deflation.
Deflation turns out to be actually very bad, because it means people would rather hold currency than spend it, and that kills the economy. Fortunately, the deflation of bitcoin doesn't kill the economy because people simply use other th
Re: (Score:2)
The value of money is determined by the economy that underpins it. That is why the US is hell-bent on ensuring that the dollar remains the currency for international oil trade. That's also why governments can print a little extra money without triggering inflation, if there is economic growth.
There is an economy underpinning Bitcoin as well, of sorts. But it's tiny.
Re: (Score:2)
> The value of money is determined by the economy that underpins it. That is why the US is hell-bent on ensuring that the dollar remains the currency for international oil trade. That's also why governments can print a little extra money without triggering inflation, if there is economic growth.
In fact, the government has to print more money if there is economic growth. Ideally, the money supply would grow exactly as the economy grows.*
*Unless the velocity of money changes.
Re: (Score:3)
You're right about Bitcoin, but in regards to the dollar, there are a couple of common misconceptions.
The phrase "full faith and credit" does not refer to a guarantee that you can pay for things with dollars, but rather, refers to the government's promise to repay in full any money that it borrows.
The gold standard never worked as well as people today think it did. It resulted in an unstable money supply; gold booms resulted in inflation, while times of gold scarcity resulted in deflation. Similarly, the do
Re: (Score:2)
> Once the quantum computers can break the verification encryption (if they haven't already, which is quite likely down in the black labs).
It is not. The days in which very expensive, proprietary hardware could run rings around off-the-shelf hardware are over, and as of 2026 it still remains to be seen whether QCs will ever amount to anything beyond lab curiosities.
So we're halfway down to true value... (Score:2)
It will be interesting to see which whales break first and start to unload their portfolios into something with actual value. It's only a matter of time. And now that the regulators have begrudgingly wrapped a thin veneer of governance around the trading of these "instruments" it will be even more interesting to see who skates and who winds up in jail when it all falls apart.
Bitcoin is like gold (Score:3)
Unlike bitcoin, gold is a tangible asset. It has value as an industrial commodity, but it's present price is far above that. The difference in the two prices is the "collectable" part fueled only by demand, the same as Bitcoin. There is one difference. Should a catastrophe make the internet unavailable, your gold will still be there.
No wonder (Score:2)
That's the kind of thing that is bound to happen with a commodity that is good for speculation, criminal purposes, and precious little else.
BitTulip mania (Score:2)
Bitcoin investors, burning more in the cost of electricity (150-210 TWh annually) to generate an electronic token with no connection to the real economy.
--
agentic, sovereign, tokenized, quantum-proof, decentralized, orchestrated and cloud/blockchain hybrid.
How's El Salvador and Bukele Doing? (Score:3)
Remember El Salvador in 2021? Moving to Bitcoin they were. It's gonna be yuge says Bukele and a few.
In late 2025 their congress stepped in and passed a new law to unwind all that shit as it continued to fuck over their economy and the IMF required it for yet another loan. And that was before things got really crappy in Bitcoinatopia.
I wonder if they were able to sell any reserves before a 50% crash and a total loss on their infrastructure build out($1.6B)?
HODL onto that bag!
taxes (Score:2)
As I see it:: Since bitcoyn has no use-value it then must be money. Now the purpose of money is to make government tax collection easy; [ better $10 bills than a truck-load of sheep ] . Can a USA citizen pay his Federal taxes with bitcoyn, or must his bitcoyns first be exchanged for government-supported currency ?
Sold when it hit 100k (Score:1)
Feel like a modern day Warren Buffett right now.
Bitcoin isn't about value (Score:2)
It's about being party of a wanky club.
Bitcoin is an example (Score:2)
Of how the pre central banking united states currency was. Or any asset backed currency for that matter.
One day a dollar was worth X, the next Y the following day it was worth H. Then those thinking because it was worth X then Y they were going to be rich when it hit Z, suddenly weren't.
This is why people at the time preferred to be paid daily, stashed it anywhere and everywhere. Then didn't even bother to retrieve it on the lows(and why any house or property dating to that time always has a handful of thes
There's less than a million left to mine (Score:2)
And the fact you need increasing amounts of electricity to "mine" them means that people are abandoning them for easier to obtain products.
Flight to quality (Score:2)
The US has had price shocks with Iran and Russia and..... there was a flight to quality. To GOLD. The price of bitcoin sat flat, and then shrank, whereas the price of gold keeps going up and up. Bitcoin never really recovered after that. First real test of bitcoin as a store of wealth and it failed. It's never really recovered since then. Gold remains king.
I don't actually own any gold and don't have an interest in it, but it's been hilarious to hear people claim bitcoin was digital gold, and when p
Be very careful. (Score:2)
I wrote something on Reddit once in an economics subreddit, questioning the value of BitCoin. I got the most severe flaming I've ever experienced. It got copied to the BitCoin subreddit where I got flamed even hotter.
So be ready to get flamed if you're not all in.
Never mind (Score:2)
you can always take them to the bank to cut your loses and cash in to recoup ypur loses bu imvesting in Spacex and OpenAI etc.
It is a currency. (Score:2)
That the more people use it the less it is worth?
Re: It is a currency. (Score:1)
I think the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are relevant here, although most probably not the dominant factor. Russia and Iran are undoubtedly spending down their Bitcoin reserves at a rapid pace to cover revenue losses elsewhere and move money sanction-free.
Any Evidence? (Score:2)
> Russia and Iran are undoubtedly spending down their Bitcoin reserves
Do we know that they actually have Bitcoin reserves? And if so, do we know how much they have? The only confirmed national "reserves" I've heard about, prior to the wars, was tiny nation stats like El Salvador.
Also, what would Russia and Iran be spending them on? Wouldn't it be more likely that they are accepting Bitcoin payments for their oil exports? And probably not Bitcoin either. More likely some stable coin because Bitcoin sucks due to volatility.
I see lots of baseless claims online about these nation
Re: (Score:3)
Also, what would Russia and Iran be spending them on?
Have to pay your troops. Or in Russia's case, bribe people to enlist then pay out when they're killed the next week.
Also have to pay the companies making your guns, drones, and ammunition. Or, in Russia's case, paying people to put out fires at their oil refineries [1]which keep going up in flames [kyivindependent.com].
[1] https://kyivindependent.com/marine-terminal-in-russias-krasnodar-krai-ablaze-after-reported-strike/
Re:Any Evidence? (Score:5, Informative)
It is actually believed that Russia has substantial Bitcoin reserves. Iran [1]outright runs their own mining operation and mandates private Iranian miners must sell to the central bank of Iran [chainalysis.com]. What they're buying is everything else they need, as both are heavily sanctioned and they use Bitcoin to get around sanctions. North Korea does it for the same reason, to avoid sanctions, but they gain these through [2]hacking and theft [dw.com].
[1] https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/iranian-crypto-activity-geopolitical-tensions-2026/
[2] https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-crypto-bitcoin-hackers-kim-jong-un/a-72162566
Re: (Score:3)
Trump is probably going to lift virtually all the Iranian and Russian sanctions as part of what he gives up to stop his own ill-conceived War. So yeah I can see Bitcoin continuing to drop.
Re: (Score:2)
Its not a currency. At best, its a title to nothing.