Crypto announces a market hurricane in 2026

There are alerts that slam like a door. And then there are those that creak, slowly, until they become impossible to ignore. Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, clearly places his message in the second category: for him, 2026 could resemble a big end-of-cycle decompression. Not just a “pullback”. A broader, dirtier, more contagious move.

When crypto becomes the thermometer (and not the gadget)

The main idea is simple, almost disturbing: crypto would no longer be “apart”. It would be the first domino. McGlone considers that the crypto market has already started to turn and that this reversal signals something broader on risky assets.

This reasoning breaks a persistent belief: that of a bitcoin “outside the system”, naturally immune. McGlone insists instead on a very market reality: correlations with U.S. stocks have strengthened, to the point that BTC looks more like a kind of leveraged stock than a defensive asset.

And this is where it stings. Because if bitcoin behaves like a “risk asset”, it can become the first to fall when financing tightens, when margins contract, when the reflex is no longer “buy the dip” but “reduce exposure”.

The levels that scare: $50,000, then $10,000… and the psychological effect

McGlone does not just talk about sentiment. He talks about levels. According to him, a first stop around $50,000 is plausible, and he repeats his shock scenario: $10,000. This is not a phrase thrown for show; he has defended it several times.

The target can be contested. But the mechanism cannot be ignored: the more extreme a level is, the more it changes behavior. At $50,000, some say “normal correction.” At $10,000, the narrative fractures. Weak hands capitulate. Strong hands wait. And the in-between hesitates.

In his exchange with David Lin (The David Lin Report), McGlone precisely places this shift in a “post-euphoria” reading: for him, 2024 and 2025 were driven by major catalysts, like the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs and a more risk-friendly political climate, before serving as a last accelerator of speculation.

The important nuance: he does not say these catalysts were “bad.” He says they may have marked a cycle peak, like a last push before exhaustion.

Stocks, deflation, gold: the trio that can turn a pullback into a wave

The warning is not only aimed at bitcoin. McGlone broadens to the stock market: he points out that the U.S. market capitalization relative to GDP remains close to historical extremes, and that even a simple return to technical benchmarks, like the S&P 500 200-day moving average, could trigger a more general deleveraging.

The keyword here is deflation. Not necessarily “prices collapsing everywhere” overnight. More the idea of an environment where liquidity becomes more expensive, the economy slows, multiples compress. In this setting, the assets most sensitive to financing, growth stocks, speculative segments, crypto, are often the first to take the hit.

Even gold, often presented as the ultimate refuge, is not exempt from this reading. The yellow metal has recently shown it can falter, with a day marked by an estimated drop of nearly $2.1 trillion in value, a brutal reminder that even safe havens can drop when nervousness grips the markets. In this context, McGlone, historically supportive of gold, judges the move has become too stretched after an exceptional annual performance. And when an asset strays too long from its benchmarks, what follows is rarely a straight line.