Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodities strategist Mike McGlone predicts Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) will fall to $10,000, calling the crypto asset class “dead” as unlimited token supply and five years of underperformance versus the S&P 500 make it uninvestable for institutional risk managers.
The $10,000 Target Explained
McGlone defines $10,000 as the most widely traded price for Bitcoin since 2019-2020, similar to how crude oil has traded around $57 per barrel for almost 10 years.
“That’s where Bitcoin set its place,” McGlone said, arguing the asset will return to this level during a broader risk asset correction.
McGlone previously called for Bitcoin to drop to $1,100 in 2018 when it traded at $10,000.
Bitcoin ultimately bottomed at $3,000, making him “30% wrong, 70% right.” He became bullish in 2019 and correctly predicted Bitcoin would exceed $100,000 in 2020 by “just adding a zero.”
Now McGlone argues Bitcoin must “lop off a zero” from $100,000. Currently trading around $68,000, he’s about 32% correct so far but expects the stock market’s first 20% correction in years to drive the final leg down.
The ‘Dead’ Asset Class Thesis
McGlone calls crypto “dead” as an institutional asset class based on risk management principles.
The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index has underperformed the S&P 500 since 2017, down about 20% in 2025 and 20% year-to-date in 2026.
“When you have an asset that has an unlimited supply of other assets in that space and very poor performance as an index versus maybe beta S&P 500, there is no reason you’re supposed to buy that,” McGlone said.
From a financial risk manager perspective, crypto shows high correlation to equities, higher volatility, and worse five-year performance.
McGlone points to the explosion of cryptocurrencies from one (Bitcoin) in 2009 to 37 million today.
While stablecoins have grown to $300 billion tracking real value, the other tokens “track nothing” and represent unlimited supply.
The Stock Market Correlation
Everything is becoming correlated, McGlone argues.
The Market Vectors Digital Assets 100 Small Cap Index shows a 0.84 correlation with Bitcoin over 48 months, reversing earlier negative correlation.
U.S. stock market cap to GDP jumped to 2.3 times, the highest in 100 years.
“Crypto led the way up in risk assets,” McGlone said. “Now they’re leading the way lower.” Bitcoin must stay above $74,000 to prove him wrong, the level he recently lowered from $90,000.
The Deflationary Scenario
McGlone expects a post-inflation deflationary period similar to China, where the 10-year bond yield sits at 1.82% with 300% debt-to-GDP.
He’s bullish U.S. Treasuries, arguing they will “grab alpha” this year after Bitcoin dominated for most of the last decade and gold in 2025.
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