00:00Bitcoin has seen a modest resurgence after its deepest one-day decline in history on Thursday.
00:06The original cryptocurrency rose as much as 5.8% on Friday after its 13% slide a day earlier.
00:14It's fallen 20% this week alone and remains on track for its worst week since 2022.
00:20This wipes out all the gains made since Donald Trump took office in January 2025.
00:24Well, let's talk now to Jason Dean, a Bitcoin analyst and co-CEO of the renewable energy company RenewaBlox.
00:33Jason, good to see you. Thanks for coming on the program.
00:35So looking at the price of Bitcoin, it has bounced back a bit, hasn't it?
00:38But by any stretch, Bitcoin's had a dramatic plunge recently. Why is that?
00:44Yeah, good evening, Robin.
00:46Yeah, it's been quite the ride, hasn't it, over the last few months?
00:49I mean, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high, I think it was October last year, about $126,000.
00:57And at that point, you normally expect to see a little bit of a correction, a little bit of cooling off while some traders take profits.
01:05But that actually started a decline, which just sort of carried on and then gradually accelerated, and we find ourselves where we are today.
01:13So what are the three key reasons?
01:14Well, there is that selling off to start with.
01:18There has also been, you've got to remember, Bitcoin is traded very much still as a risk on assets.
01:24So whenever there's any bad economic use or macroeconomic environment looks pretty poor, it's usually one of the first assets to sell off.
01:32And we've seen that here.
01:34And once that starts, you get a cascading effect where people who have leveraged their Bitcoin are forced to liquidate because they can't make the margin calls.
01:43That creates extra selling pressure, which lowers the price even further.
01:47So you just end up with just a collapsing domino effect almost.
01:52Bitcoin, perhaps the best known cryptocurrency, but the market as a whole has lost around, I believe it's $2 trillion in the last couple of months.
02:01I mean, this is a very fragile market, isn't it?
02:03What does that say to investors, potential investors?
02:05Well, this is the point where I kind of make distinction between Bitcoin and crypto.
02:12They are different things.
02:13They're always lumped together in the same category, but they are very, very different.
02:16So Bitcoin is like gold 2.0.
02:19It's a digital version of gold.
02:20It is provably scarce.
02:23You can't create it.
02:24You have to earn it, buy it or mine it.
02:27There is no other way to acquire it.
02:29Cryptocurrency, that's everything else.
02:31It's altcoins, we call them, and they are basically equities essentially issued by individuals, companies, foundations, whatever.
02:39They are controlled by a person or that group of people, and that means they are inherently risky anyway.
02:47So there's a credibility problem there for me in the first place, but they are particularly fragile.
02:52The trouble is they are still often very linked with Bitcoin, which is this hard asset, and the two usually do move in town.
03:00But, yeah, you'll normally see a worse reduction in the altcoins as we've seen this time around as well.
03:06Well, interesting that you mentioned gold because we have a senior figure from JP Morgan saying Bitcoin now looks more attractive than gold long term because of its volatility and its value prospects.
03:16What's your view?
03:17Yeah, I mean, I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I'm immediately going to say I think Bitcoin is a more attractive long term view.
03:25I think, you know, gold has seen this enormous influx of capital over the last few months, and that's a lot to do with this flight to safety in these uncertain conditions.
03:36So gold itself hits a new all-time high just recently after not moving for many, many years.
03:41And I suspect we might see some of that capital rotating into Bitcoin at some point once the dust has settled a bit.
03:49But, you know, long term, I think Bitcoin is the better bet.
03:53But that's just my view.
03:54We talk a lot, don't we, about stronger regulation over Bitcoin and cryptocurrency more broadly.
03:59Do you think if stronger regulation was in place now, a volatility like this would have been better managed?
04:05I think the short answer to that is no, because markets will do what markets want to do.
04:13Legislation has changed a lot.
04:15I mean, it's actually moving positively in most countries around the world.
04:18Most governments now are, you know, have acknowledged that this thing is not going away and they've got to create a framework for taxation, for managing payments, etc.
04:26So we are seeing actually really much more clarity on regulation.
04:32Now, whether that would affect anything like this is a different question.
04:36My personal view is probably not.
04:38Jason, thank you so much for coming on the programme.
04:40Great to talk to you today.
04:41That's Jason Dean from Renewablex.
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