Bitcoin's Fate Hangs in Balance Against US Treasury Bonds, Warns Bloomberg
Bloomberg Intelligence strategist Mike McGlone warns of a critical inflection point for Bitcoin against US Treasury bonds, suggesting a potential crash for the broader crypto market. His analysis highlights Bitcoin's underperformance, particularly if it stays below the key $80,000 level, raising questions about the end of its 'glory days'.
Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone has issued a significant caution regarding Bitcoin's (BTC) performance against US Treasury bonds, suggesting it could be at a critical inflection point with broad implications for the entire cryptocurrency market and other asset classes. McGlone highlighted Bitcoin’s ongoing underperformance, which he believes may signal a major shift.
According to McGlone, a key price level for Bitcoin is $80,000. He warned that if Bitcoin's weakness persists below this threshold, the broader cryptocurrency market could face significant trouble. This bearish outlook is rooted in the comparison between BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT).
McGlone illustrated his analysis by setting an initial normalized value of 100 for the IBIT/TLT ratio at the end of 2024. As of October 30, this ratio had fallen to 81, indicating that the Bitcoin ETF has underperformed the Treasury bond ETF by approximately 19% on a relative-performance basis during this period. Furthermore, the IBIT/TLT ratio has struggled to consistently stay above the 100 mark since the fourth quarter of 2025. McGlone emphasized that this underperformance is particularly alarming given that IBIT is approximately four times as volatile as TLT.
The Bloomberg strategist questioned whether the