What to know:

With crypto's multi-month downturn accelerating into a freefall last week, bulls were frantically grasping for technical signals, or maybe yarns about the blowup of some leveraged hedge fund, that might signal a final bottom for this bear market.

Perhaps the ultimate sign of a bottom, though, might be the cheers arising from those who have been faithfully bearish on bitcoin  as its price rose from $0 to more than $100,000 over its 16-year lifespan.

  The Financial Times for many years has surely stood above all traditional publications in its steadfast opposition to bitcoin and crypto. The London paper’s team of truly talented writers has seemingly never wavered from a firm no-coiner stance. The peak moment may have been in 2025, when Katie Martin wondered why her teeth weren't worth billions of dollars, as they're even scarcer than bitcoin.

Fast forward to this weekend and the FT's Jemima Kelly. "Bitcoin is still about $69,000 too high," was the headline of her Sunday essay, wonderfully summing up Kelly's and her publication's general stance over the last decade-plus. [The FT subsequently changed the headline to "$70,000 too high" after bitcoin rose overnight].

"Ever since its creation, bitcoin has been on a journey that will end, splattered on the ground," Kelly wrote. "This week has shown us that the supply of 'greater fools' that bitcoin relies on is drying up," she continued. "The fairy tales that have been keeping crypto afloat are turning out to be just that. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that there is no floor in the value of something based on nothing more than thin air."

Earlier in the week, with the price of bitcoin declining below the $76,000 average cost basis of BTC treasury giant Strategy (MSTR), the FT's Craig Coben published, "Strategy's long road to nowhere."

With the stock already down about 80% from its record high of late 2024, Coben in February 2026 declared, "Management has no safe choices — only different paths to destroying shareholder value ... it is hard to see the case for buying into a vehicle that has merely broken even on its investments over five years."

"Like a gigantic mastodon stuck in La Brea tar pits," Coben concluded. "Strategy is flailing for a way out."

Peter Schiff joins in

With gold — despite a good deal of recent volatility — continuing in a major bull cycle, longtime goldbug and bitcoin critic Peter Schiff was feeling his oats as well.

"According to Michael Saylor, bitcoin is the best-performing asset in the world," he wrote on Tuesday. "Yet Strategy invested over $54 billion in bitcoin over the past five years, and as of now the company is down about 3% on that investment. I'm sure the losses over the next five years will be much greater!"

"Bitcoin below $76,000, it's now worth 15 ounces of gold, down 59% from its Nov. 2021 high," Schiff continued. "Bitcoin is in a long-term bear market priced in gold."

Other signs

"I refuse to pick bottoms," once said former hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry. "Monkeys spend all their time picking bottoms."

As Hendry noted, it's probably a good idea not to get too cute timing one's buys to headlines like those seen in the FT this week. It's fairly safe to say, though, that some sort of bottoming process is underway.

In other news this week that would never appear near tops, it appears that investor interest in Tether is evaporating. With the crypto market still perky late last year, it was reported that the stablecoin issuing giant was in talks to raise $15-$20 billion at as much as a $500 billion valuation.

According to a report in the FT on Tuesday, however, investors appear to be pushing back against that valuation, and capital-raising efforts may only be on the order of about $5 billion.

For its part, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told the FT that the original reports of a $15-$20 billion capital raise were a "misconception," and that Tether had received plenty of interest at that $500 billion valuation.

Nevertheless, according to the report, investors have privately raised concerns about that lofty valuation. Things are fluid, the report continued, and a crypto rally could quickly change sentiment.