It’s been one of those weeks.
Bitcoin slid and slid and slid, down to around $64k which is wear it is sitting as of this writing—roughly half of its peak, which topped out near $122k. Hive has followed suit, slipping under seven cents. Even silver, which had already taken one hit earlier, managed a second sharp drop to about $66 before clawing its way back to hover around $74 as I write this.
Three very different assets. Three very different markets. And yet the timing lines up almost too neatly. That’s usually the tell. Conspiracy? Maybe, but probably not. There is no hand guiding this.
When everything drops together — risk assets, “hard money”, and niche ecosystems like Hive — it’s rarely about the individual fundamentals. It’s about liquidity, fear, and positioning. People sell what they can, not just what they want to. BTC trades 24/7 and acts like a pressure valve. Hive, with thinner liquidity, feels every tremor more sharply. Silver, despite its reputation as a safe haven, still gets dragged into margin calls and forced selling when things tighten.
Haven't we been here before? Bitcoin falling 45–50% from a peak isn’t some black-swan scenario. It’s practically a rite of passage. Hive dipping under seven cents now... that hurts, especially for those of us who’ve watched it grind sideways for so long. But it’s also happening in a broader risk-off environment. And silver? Silver has always been volatile when financial stress shows up. It doesn’t glide. It lurches.
None of this means things are over. It also doesn’t mean they bounce back tomorrow. What it does mean is that short-term narratives tend to collapse the moment markets get uncomfortable.
This is where temperament matters more than charts. If you were overextended, this week was a reminder. If you weren’t, it was still unpleasant, even if survivable. And if you’ve been around long enough, you’ve seen versions of this movie before: fast money runs for the exits, patient money waits for the lights to come back on. Markets don’t punish optimism, after all. They punish impatience.
Well... that's assuming the lights do come back on. If the broader Wall Street crash we have been expecting for the past year is upon us, all bets are off. In that case, you really will be following that joke Buffett meme above!
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
