Bitcoin is struggling to regain the momentum it had in 2025, the first year of Trump’s extremely crypto-friendly administration.
The token is still hovering around the $67,000 mark, a major loss compared to its October all-time high of just under twice that. It has experienced its worst-ever start to a year, dropping 24 percent in the first 50 days of the year.
That tooth-rattling downturn has certain critics predicting a total collapse, suggesting its value could eventually plunge to zero dollars — a controversial stance that’s sparked a fierce debate. Proponents argue the core fundamentals haven’t changed at all, and that Bitcoin’s demise was the result of major macroeconomic uncertainty, questionable Federal Reserve policy, and major selloffs triggered by fears over a growing AI bubble.
Critics, however, point to Bitcoin becoming untethered from the value of gold, an identity crisis undermining its long-touted role as a “digital gold” safe haven for investors.
It’s a conundrum that has spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt — or FUD, a popular term in crypto circles. As one viral post on X pointed out, Google Trends has shown a major uptick for the queries “Bitcoin going to zero” and “Is Bitcoin dead?”
As Decrypt points out, the “Crypto Fear and Greed Index,” a metric that’s designed to reflect the broader crypto market sentiment, has since swung to “extreme fear,” hitting its lowest mark since 2019.
For what it’s worth, users on the prediction betting platform Polymarket are also far more prone to believe that Bitcoin will hit $60,000 before recovering to $80,000.
But the claim that the coin could indeed crash down to zero, effectively wiping out all of its value, remains widely contested. If you believe Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, it’s all uphill from here.
“We may be in the middle of a crypto winter, but spring is coming — and Bitcoin is winning,” he tweeted earlier this week.
“If it’s not going to zero, it’s going to a million,” he added in a separate post today.
Skeptics, however, are far more pessimistic about Bitcoin’s chances in the long run, saying the crypto has lost its way.
“After more than 15 years of bitcoin, we’re no closer to knowing what its point is,” argued Globe and Mail investment reporter Tim Shuffelt. “There is no story behind bitcoin any more. It’s not even clear why it has had such a calamitous few months at the precise moment the Trump administration was supposed to be ushering in a golden age of crypto.”
Others predict Bitcoin will slide to $50,000 before making any recovery.
“I think we are going to see more pain and a final capitulation period for digital asset prices in the next few months,” Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, told The Block.
Michael Burry, who famously shorted the US housing market before its collapse in 2008, also warned that if Bitcoin were to crash even further, it could result in a “death spiral.”
If critics are to be believed, Bitcoin’s losses are only getting started as more people start to question its role as an untethered, highly speculative, and volatile asset. But Bitcoin has recovered from major crashes many times before, and a recovery is still far from being out of the question.
More on Bitcoin zero: As Crash Deepens, Investors Say Bitcoin Is Headed for Zero Dollars