A familiar voice returns with a familiar, and controversial, announcement about bitcoin .
Mike McGlone, senior commodities strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, is reiterating that bitcoin could fall to $10,000.
But this time, he framed it with a clear line in the sand: $75,000.
If bitcoin decisively recovers from this level and maintains it, the bearish thesis is called into question. Otherwise, according to McGlone, the path of least resistance would be significantly downward, with prices falling to $10,000, a level last seen in early 2020.
The $10,000 magnet
McGlone’s extremely bearish forecast of a collapse to $10,000 is not new. It has been circulating for several weeks and is based more on market structure than on short-term catalysts.
The cryptocurrency spent a long period hovering around $10,000 before the vast wave of fiat liquidity hit the markets following the 2020 coronavirus-induced crash. This era of zero interest rates, stimulus checks and aggressive liquidity easing by central banks has fueled unprecedented risk-taking across all sectors of the financial markets. It played a major role in keeping BTC sustainably above $10,000.
“Before the largest capital infusion in history in 2020-21, Bitcoin was hovering around $10,000, and it may be on its way back to that level. Around $10,000 also represents the top cryptocurrency’s most traded price since 2017, when contracts “terms have been launched,” McGlone noted on LinkedIn.
With this era of abundant liquidity now behind us, McGlone suggests that bitcoin could return to what he considers its equilibrium price – around $10,000.
According to him, $10,000 has been the most actively traded price zone since 2017 when CME futures began trading. In other words, $10,000 isn’t just a round number — therein lies considerable historical volume.
McGlone also points to the explosive growth of the cryptocurrency market as a potential drag on bitcoin. In 2017, bitcoin largely defined this space, but today millions of tokens are vying for attention and siphoning capital away from the industry leader. According to him, this increase in supply has become a structural headwind rather than a tailwind.
“The unlimited supply of cryptocurrencies and competitors for use represent headwinds for Bitcoin, McGlone said on LinkedIn, adding that stablecoins represent “the most sustainable trend” in cryptocurrency. He predicts that ether will become more important than ether itself and eventually bitcoin.
“I expect the ‘flippening’ to continue, with Tether’s assets under management (AUM) surpassing those of Ethereum in 2026, and then eventually those of Bitcoin,” he said.
The level of invalidation at $75,000
McGlone’s bearish forecast relies on prices remaining below $75,000. This level has been a major turning point for market trends over the past 12 months. The March-April 2025 decline lost momentum around $75,000, while the early 2024 rally stalled at this level. Additionally, $75,000 corresponds to key Fibonacci retracement levels.
Think of it as a market verdict threshold. A sustained move above would indicate that bitcoin has re-established strong structural demand, ending the downtrend started at the October highs above $126,000. This would imply that institutional flows, macroeconomic conditions, or both are strong enough to invalidate his fallback thesis.
Fail to do so – or be rejected again – and the argument reverses: bitcoin could still be trapped in a longer-term decline to $10,000.
