FT Column: Bitcoin’s “Hate” Moment — What Matters Is Not the Fall, But the Landing
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FT Column: Bitcoin’s “Hate” Moment — What Matters Is Not the Fall, But the Landing
So far, so good…
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy: Jemima Kelly
Translated by: TechFlow
TechFlow Intro: Bitcoin has just suffered its most brutal crash since 2022—not only erasing all gains made following Donald Trump’s election victory but also exposing the fragility lurking beneath the so-called “political premium.” In this piece, Jemima Kelly draws on a famous line from the 1995 French cult classic La Haine (“Hate”) to sharply satirize the crypto community’s “mental victory” mindset amid crisis. Even with an unprecedented “Bitcoin President” in the White House—and even with bitcoin designated as a strategic national reserve—the sell-off could not be stopped.
The author argues that when a bubble built entirely upon “faith in others’ faith” begins to burst, and when the “greater fool” finally stops showing up, bitcoin’s descent will culminate in the most catastrophic landing imaginable.
The full article follows:
“This is a story about a man falling from a 50-story building. As he plummets, passing each floor, he reassures himself by repeating the same phrase over and over: Jusqu’ici tout va bien—‘So far, so good,’ ‘so far, so good,’ ‘so far, so good.’”
That’s the stunning opening of the 1995 French cult classic La Haine.
This passage—and this image—somehow imprinted itself indelibly on my consciousness, for life. Whenever I feel anxious or gripped by “imposter worries,” it comforts me. It suggests: Since nothing bad has happened to me yet, maybe I’ll keep getting lucky.
And “so far,” the salesmen and prophets of the bitcoin world have likewise remained unscathed.
True, bitcoin has endured dozens of major crashes; perhaps hundreds of crypto firms have gone bust; countless individuals may have lost their life savings—but every time bitcoin fell, it bounced back.
Those who could afford to lose held on (those who couldn’t were washed out), and the cognitive muscle memory gained from each rebound convinced them their sacred cryptocurrency would live forever.
Let me say, sensitively: It won’t.
The overconfidence of bitcoin believers—or more precisely, the confidence they project, which is essential to keeping the whole system running—has always been unfounded, irresponsible, and reckless. From the moment of its birth, bitcoin embarked on a journey destined to end with a shattering impact on the ground.
This week, that “ground” is rapidly coming into sharp focus. Bitcoin has suffered its worst crash since 2022, plunging Friday to nearly $60,000—erasing all gains since Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election and shedding more than half its value from the all-time high of over $127,000 reached last October.
According to Coinglass, roughly $1.25 billion worth of bitcoin positions were liquidated in just 24 hours—from Thursday to Friday.
A sense of despair—and the crypto-world’s infamous “Cope” (slang for clinging to delusion while struggling to accept painful reality)—is palpable. “I’ve never been more bullish on crypto,” tweeted Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase and prominent crypto evangelist, on Thursday: “Because rule-based order is collapsing, and code-based order is rising. So short-term price doesn’t matter.” Of course he’d say that.
Others have opted for self-deprecating nonsense.
Michael Saylor—the man who transformed his company MicroStrategy into a massive bitcoin bet (holding over 713,000 BTC, roughly 3.4% of total supply)—posted Wednesday: “If you want to give me a birthday gift, buy some bitcoin for yourself.” Poor “Birthday Billionaire.”
The next day, during MicroStrategy’s Q4 2025 earnings call—before the worst of the crash had even unfolded, yet still reporting a staggering $12.4 billion loss—Saylor tried a different line of persuasion. He insisted: “I believe the importance of securing support for the industry and digital assets at the highest levels of political structure cannot be overstated.” He pointed out that the U.S. now has a “Bitcoin President,” committed to making America the “world’s crypto capital.”
But this is where things get deeply awkward for the crypto world. Because Saylor is right—the U.S. does indeed have the closest thing ever to a “Bitcoin President,” and his family even holds vested crypto interests. Yet despite the establishment of a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” the pardoning of convicted crypto criminals, permission for Americans to hold crypto in their 401(k) retirement accounts, and claims that Trump ended former President Biden’s “war on crypto” within his first 200 days in office, Trump’s presence in the White House still failed to halt the sell-off. If bitcoin can’t thrive under these conditions, when exactly will it?
We may not yet have truly entered bitcoin’s final “death spiral”; I make no claim to know when that might happen. Pinpointing the endpoint of a speculative frenzy based purely on faith—or more specifically, on “faith in others’ faith”—is a near-impossible task. Bitcoin may yet stage several more last-gasp rallies (at the time of writing, it has already rebounded to around $69,000).
But that faith is beginning to fade. This week tells us the supply of “greater fools” sustaining bitcoin is drying up. The fairy tales propping up cryptocurrencies are revealing their illusory nature. People are starting to realize that something built entirely on nothing has no floor to its value.
Ask yourself: Will this thing still exist in 100 years? Remember that line: “What matters isn’t how you fall—it’s how you land.”
So far, so good. So far, so good. So far…
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