Growing recession fears in the U.S. could drag bitcoin down to $10,000, according to Mike McGlone.

Bloomberg Intelligence macro strategist Mike McGlone said the sharp downturn in cryptocurrencies could be an early warning sign for broader markets, cautioning that bitcoin may eventually retreat toward $10,000 and potentially precede a U.S. recession.

Writing on X, McGlone argued that the long-standing “buy the dip” approach that has buoyed risk assets since the 2008 crisis may be breaking down as crypto prices weaken and volatility regimes shift.

Bitcoin rebounded to $70,841 by 07:00 UTC on Feb. 15 after falling to $65,395 on Feb. 12, but later eased back to around $68,800. The broader digital asset market remained under pressure, with 85 of the top 100 tokens posting losses. Privacy coins monero and zcash dropped 10% and 8%, respectively, over the past 24 hours.

“Healthy correction is what we should hear soon from stock market analysts (who risk unemployment if not onboard), following collapsing cryptos,” McGlone wrote, suggesting that the post-2008 dip-buying playbook may be nearing exhaustion.

He pointed to stretched macro indicators to support his view. U.S. stock market capitalization relative to GDP has climbed to its highest level in about a century. At the same time, 180-day volatility in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 has fallen to near eight-year lows — a combination he sees as a potential precursor to instability.

McGlone also described the unwinding of what he called a “crypto bubble,” adding that “Trump euphoria” has likely peaked and may be spilling over into other markets. Meanwhile, gold and silver are “grabbing alpha” at a pace not seen in roughly 50 years, with rising volatility that he believes could eventually transmit into equities.

He shared a chart comparing bitcoin — scaled down by a factor of 10 — with the S&P 500, noting that both were trading below 7,000 on his framework as of Feb. 13. In his view, bitcoin’s high-beta profile makes it unlikely to hold those levels if equity beta deteriorates.

As an initial “normal reversion” point, McGlone identified 5,600 on the S&P 500, equivalent to roughly $56,000 for bitcoin under his scaling method. Beyond that, part of his base case envisions bitcoin declining toward $10,000 should U.S. equities peak and reverse.

Debate over the outlook

Jason Fernandes, co-founder of AdLunam, challenged the bearish thesis in comments to CoinDesk, arguing that it assumes excesses must resolve through collapse and that bitcoin’s equity correlation guarantees a similar crash.

“That’s false equivalence and single-path bias,” Fernandes said. “Markets can adjust through time, sector rotation or inflation erosion. A macro slowdown could lead to consolidation or a reset to $40,000–$50,000, not necessarily a systemic breakdown to $10,000.”

Fernandes added that such a severe drop would likely require a genuine systemic event — including sharp liquidity contraction, widening credit spreads, forced deleveraging and a disorderly equity sell-off.

“That implies recession combined with financial stress, not just slower growth,” he said. “Without a credit shock or policy error that drains global liquidity, a collapse to those levels remains a low-probability tail risk.”