Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has endured a winter season for most of 2026.
After a monster run fueled by spot ETF inflows, institutional adoption, and growing optimism around a more friendly regulatory environment, investors have hit the pause button. Bitcoin peaked at $126,000 in October 2025, only to plunge to around $64,000 today.
Throw in concerns about stretched valuations, rising geopolitical tensions, and a market that’s become increasingly sensitive to interest rate expectations, and the pullback has made sense.
“Bitcoin tends to be cyclical and lower near term flows does not impact our long term ‘store of value’ thesis. Further, bitcoin still may offer some diversification from the unusual singular AI driven momentum markets we have experienced this year,” Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani explained in a note.
But lately, buyers have tepidly stepped back in as tensions over the Iran war ease and optimism about the outlook for ETF flows rises again.
Yahoo Finance caught up with both Coinbase (COIN) co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong and Binance founder Chanpeng Zhao (aka CZ) in separate interviews on the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast. The interview with Armstrong can be viewed or listened to above, and the episode with CZ drops this coming Monday at 6:00 a.m. ET.
We asked each of them for their thoughts on the current state of bitcoin.
Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong
“Well, nobody knows for sure on these things. But I think if you look at the past trends and just, you know, fear and greed indexes, if you just look at the past trends in bitcoin, I think we bottomed at $60K or so. A lot of things could drive growth of bitcoin here. I think market structure, legislation passing, I think some of these AI companies going public, because they’ve been soaking up a lot of the risk capital. So once these companies get public and the unlocks happen, I think you’ll start to see capital move back around.”
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao
“The cycles, the winters will always come and go. But the industry is growing. $60,000 [for bitcoin] we think is really low. Everyone’s panicking, but last winter, four years ago, it was $16,000. I think we just need more applications, more use cases. I think more and more use cases are coming. People are developing it.”
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance’s editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
