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Throughout its history, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are subject to significant price fluctuations, whether due to larger macro factors affecting all asset classes or during “crypto winter” related to industry concerns.
However, with the crypto-friendly Trump administration and expectations for the passage of the Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act, many onlookers expected another bull market in digital assets to begin in 2026. However, the situation was quite the opposite. Bitcoin has fallen more than 21% since the beginning of the year, dropping to $60,062.00 last week, its lowest level in nearly 16 months. This is a nearly 50% decrease from the October 2025 record.
What’s causing this recent decline? Galaxy founder and CEO Mike Novogratz said at the CNBC Digital Finance Forum in New York City on Tuesday that this is not a single event but reflects a larger industry shift. Novogratz told CNBC’s Mackenzie Sigalos at the event that there was a “collapse of confidence” in November 2022, when Bitcoin fell 22% in less than a day after the FTX collapse. “This time there is no conclusive evidence,” he said. “Look around, what happened?”
Bitcoin price since early 2026
Novogratz cited the October 2025 wipeout as a significant event, when more than 1.6 million traders suffered a total loss of $19.37 billion in leveraged positions in 24 hours, a situation that he said “wiped out many retailers and market makers” and put tremendous pressure on prices.
“Cryptocurrency is all about stories and stories,” he said. “These stories take time to build and they draw people in…so even if you wipe out a lot of those people, Humpty Dumpty doesn’t come back quickly,” he said.
But Novogratz also expects something more lasting to come out of the current downturn, saying that the recent era of crypto investing, or “the age of speculation,” will be phased out as the crypto industry introduces “institutions where people have different risk tolerances.”
“Retailers don’t get into cryptocurrencies because they want to earn 11% a year,” he said. “They come in because they want to win 30-1, 8-1, 10-1.”
Novogratz said some traders will always speculate, but overall, “using the same rails, these crypto rails, to bring banking (and) financial services to the whole world, it’s going to be replaced or replaced, and it’s going to be a real-world asset with a much lower return.”
He also pointed to tokenized stocks as an asset with a “different return profile.”
Sigalos asked Novogratz whether passage of the Clarity Act could ultimately be a catalyst for the industry, while the stalled momentum of the Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act on Capitol Hill poses at least a short-term headwind. He is confident that the Cryptocurrency Market Structure Bill will eventually become law.
“Two nights ago, I spoke to (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer, and he said, ‘We’re going to pass the Clarity Act,'” Novogratz said. “Democrats want this bill to pass, and Republicans want it too.”
Novogratz said the crypto industry needs the bill for “many reasons,” but above all, “we need the bill to reinvigorate the crypto market.”
