Weekly Read
Bitcoin erased all of March. Here's the honest Assessment.
Two weeks ago Bitcoin was at $76,000. This morning it’s at $66,600.
That’s a 12% drop in 14 days. It’s also the story of a market that keeps trying to recover and keeps running into the same wall. Let’s go through what happened this week and what it actually means.
The week in plain terms
Monday started reasonably quiet. Bitcoin was consolidating around $70,000 after the post-FOMC flush from the previous week. Then on Monday evening, Trump posted on Truth Social announcing a five-day pause on strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure. The market reacted instantly. Bitcoin ripped from $68,000 to over $71,000 in under four hours. Over $280 million in short positions were liquidated. It looked, briefly, like relief was coming.
It wasn’t.
By Thursday the gains were gone. The Iran situation remained unresolved, oil held above $100 a barrel, and broader equity markets continued to deteriorate. The Nasdaq officially entered correction territory this week, down more than 10% from its recent highs. When stocks sell off that hard, Bitcoin follows. It always does right now.
By Saturday Bitcoin was back at $66,000. Today it’s holding just above that level, but barely.
For context: Bitcoin has now erased its entire March recovery. We are ending Q1 2026 lower than where we started it. Year to date, Bitcoin is down roughly 25%.
The question nobody wants to answer honestly
Here is something worth sitting with this Sunday morning.
Gold is up over 80% in the past year. It has absorbed billions in capital as investors sought protection from geopolitical risk, tariff uncertainty, and inflation. Bitcoin, which is constantly described as digital gold, is down nearly 50% from its all-time high while all of that was happening.
This doesn’t mean Bitcoin is broken. It means it is not behaving like a safe haven right now. It’s behaving like a high-beta risk asset, moving in lockstep with tech stocks and selling off every time macro fear spikes. The correlation between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq is near multi-year highs. When institutions need to raise cash in a risk-off environment, they sell their most liquid winners. Bitcoin is one of those.
The honest question is: does that change? And the honest answer is: probably yes, eventually, but not on a timeline anyone can predict. For now, if equities are under pressure, Bitcoin is under pressure. Plan accordingly.
The Fear and Greed Index
The Fear and Greed Index measures market sentiment on a scale from 0 to 100. It’s sitting at 13 right now. That’s Extreme Fear, close to the lowest possible reading.
This number matters for one specific reason. Historically, extreme fear readings have not been good timing tools for calling a bottom, but they have been reliable indicators that the worst of the capitulation is either happening or close. The last time sentiment was this uniformly negative was summer 2022, right before the cycle bottom of that era.
That doesn’t mean buy everything tomorrow. It means the people most likely to panic-sell have probably already done it. The people still holding at $66,000 are largely people who intend to hold.
What typically ends these periods isn’t a single price move. It’s a shift in the macro environment. Inflation coming down, the Fed signaling cuts, geopolitical tension easing. None of those things have happened yet. But they will, at some point, and when they do, sentiment can shift quickly.
One thing that didn’t get enough attention this week
Morgan Stanley launched its own spot Bitcoin ETF this week with a fee of just 0.14%, the most competitive fee structure from a major bank to date. Their 16,000 financial advisors now have a direct, low-cost vehicle to move client assets into Bitcoin.
This didn’t move the price. Nothing could this week. But it matters structurally. Every week that passes, the infrastructure for institutional Bitcoin ownership gets deeper, cheaper, and more accessible. That’s the slow-moving story underneath all the noise.
What I’m watching going into April
The quarter ends this week. Q1 2026 has been difficult. But quarter-end positioning shifts can create unusual price moves in either direction, so watch Monday and Tuesday closely.
The next real catalyst is the March CPI print, due in mid-April. This is the most important data point between now and the May 6 FOMC meeting. If inflation shows signs of coming down, rate cut expectations revive and risk assets get breathing room. If it comes in hot, the higher-for-longer narrative stays locked in and this sideways, grinding market continues.
The $65,000 to $67,000 range is the support zone that needs to hold. We’ve tested it twice now. A clean break below $65,000 on meaningful volume opens the door to $60,000, which would represent a full retest of the February lows. That’s the scenario to watch and prepare for, even if you don’t think it’s the most likely outcome.
To the upside, nothing meaningful changes until Bitcoin reclaims $75,000 with conviction. Until then, this is a market for patience, not aggression.
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