FT Column: The "Hate" Moment of Bitcoin — What Matters Most Is Not the Price Drop, But How It Lands

So far, so good…

Author: Jemima Kelly

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: Bitcoin has recently experienced its worst crash since 2022, wiping out all gains since Trump’s election victory and revealing the fragility behind political dividends. The author Jemima Kelly uses a classic line from the film La Haine to sharply satirize the crypto community’s “spiritual victory” mentality during the crisis. Even with the United States having an unprecedented “Bitcoin President” and listing it as a national strategic reserve, the selling wave cannot be stopped.

The author believes that when this bubble—completely built on “faith in others”—begins to burst, and no “bigger fool” appears, Bitcoin’s fall will inevitably lead to the most brutal landing.

Full text below:

“This is a story about a man falling from a 50-story building. During his fall, each time he passes a floor, he comforts himself by repeatedly saying: Jusqu’ici tout va bien (So far, so good), so far, so good, so far, so good.”

This is the stunning opening of the 1995 French cult film La Haine.

For some reason, this passage and image have been deeply imprinted in my consciousness, accompanying me for life. Whenever I feel anxious or suffer from “Imposter Syndrome,” they always soothe me. They imply: since I haven’t had any trouble so far, maybe I can keep lucking out like this.

And “so far”—the salespeople and prophets in the Bitcoin world have also always been at peace.

Of course, Bitcoin has experienced dozens of major crashes, hundreds of crypto companies may have gone bankrupt, and countless people may have lost their life savings. But every time Bitcoin drops, it always bounces back.

Those who can afford to lose have managed to persist (those who couldn’t, were washed out), and their cognitive muscle memory from each rebound convinces them that their sacred cryptocurrency will live forever.

Allow me to point out sensitively: it won’t.

The overconfidence of Bitcoin believers—or more precisely, the confidence they display that is necessary to keep the entire system running—has always been baseless, irresponsible, and reckless. Since its inception, Bitcoin has embarked on a journey destined to end with “crashing to the ground.”

This week, that “ground” is rapidly becoming clear before our eyes. Bitcoin experienced its worst crash since 2022, dropping close to $60,000 on Friday, erasing all gains since Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election, and falling more than half from its peak of over $127,000 in October last year.

According to Coinglass data, in just 24 hours from Thursday to Friday, about $1.25 billion worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated.

This sense of despair and the so-called “Cope” (crypto slang implying someone is in hallucination, struggling to accept painful reality) are clearly visible. “I’ve never been more bullish on crypto,” Coinbase former CTO and well-known crypto evangelist Balaji Srinivasan posted on X Thursday, “because rule-based order is collapsing, and code-based order is rising. So short-term prices don’t matter.” Of course, he would say that.

Some people have chosen self-deprecating nonsense.

Michael Saylor, who turned his company MicroStrategy into a Bitcoin gambling tool (holding over 713,000 BTC, about 3.4% of the total circulating supply), posted Wednesday: “If you want to give me a birthday gift, buy some Bitcoin for yourself.” Poor “birthday billionaire.”

The next day, during the Q4 2025 earnings call—when the worst crash had not yet occurred, but Strategy still recorded an astonishing $12.4 billion loss—Saylor tried some different persuasion tactics. He insisted: “I believe that gaining support for the industry and digital capital at the highest levels of political structure is of critical importance.” He pointed out that the U.S. now has a “Bitcoin President” dedicated to making America the “world crypto capital.”

But this is where the crypto world feels very awkward. Because Saylor is not wrong—America does have the closest thing to a “Bitcoin President” ever, and this president’s family also has vested crypto interests. However, despite establishing a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” pardoning some convicted crypto criminals, allowing Americans to include cryptocurrencies in their 401(k) retirement accounts, and claiming to have ended former President Biden’s “war on crypto” within his first 200 days in office, Trump’s presence in the White House still couldn’t stop the selling wave. If Bitcoin cannot thrive in such an environment, when can it?

We may not have reached the final “death spiral” of Bitcoin yet; I don’t claim to know when that will happen. Trying to predict the end of speculative frenzy solely based on faith—or more specifically, “faith in others’ faith”—is a daunting task. Bitcoin may still have a few more final hurrahs (as of writing, it has rebounded to about $69,000).

But this faith is beginning to fade. The situation this week tells us that the supply of “greater fools” that Bitcoin relies on is drying up. The fairy tales supporting the rise of cryptocurrencies are revealing their illusory nature. People are starting to realize that for something entirely built on nothingness, its value has no bottom.

Ask yourself: will this still exist in 100 years? Remember that phrase: “The important thing is not how you fall, but how you land.”

So far, so good, so far, so good, so far…