Cryptocurrencies: has the capitulation taken place?
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A complete surrender corresponds to the lowest point... So in theory it's an opportunity to do some good business.

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Any experienced investor will tell you that the best time to invest is after you have 'surrendered'. In military terms, to capitulate is to surrender, to leave control of the battlefield to your opponent. In finance, capitulation occurs when investors abandon the market en masse and precipitately, selling their assets at any price to seek refuge elsewhere. Theoretically, a complete capitulation corresponds to the lowest point... So in theory it's an opportunity to make some bargains because the price can, in theory, only go back up (if the asset isn't dead of course 😂 ).

Last week saw a big thrill with the collapse of UST, the third stablecoin on the market. The bitcoin price lost 26% in the space of a few hours until it hit $25,000, a level it hadn't reached since December 2020 (giving us a nice -64% since November's record high of $69,000). You only have to go to the social networks to see the damage....

The bitcoin price since the end of 2017:

At the same time, the number of NFT transactions is falling and US investment bank Morgan Stanley is predicting a depreciation in the value of virtual land acquired in metaverses. That sounds a lot like capitulation, doesn't it?

At least that's what Mathieu Jamar thinks. For this asset manager at Belgian crypto fund DCY, "there was clearly a capitulation on the markets last week, so it's entirely possible that we've marked a low for a while, but it's still hard to say whether this level will be the last capitulation." What, wait, there may be more than one capitulation?

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Raphaël Bloch

Raphaël Bloch is CEO and co-founder of The Big Whale, an independent market intelligence platform on digital assets serving financial market participants through editorial coverage, research, a weekly briefing, and in-person events. He co-founded The Big Whale in April 2022. At the platform, he moderates and hosts institutional events bringing together banks, asset managers, custodians, and infrastructure providers on topics including staking, on-chain yield, stablecoins, DeFi lending, and tokenisation. He has moderated panels at events hosted in partnership with Bitwise, Everstake, Gemini, Morpho, Hexarq, Coinhouse, Delubac, Franklin Templeton, and the Ethereum Foundation, held in London and Paris between late 2025 and mid-2026.

Before founding The Big Whale, Bloch worked as a reporter at Les Echos from December 2016 to March 2020, then at L'Express from March 2020 to March 2022. He also previously worked at Reuters. Since September 2022, he has held a concurrent role as Business Analyst at BFM Business. He has been active in crypto journalism since 2016. He holds degrees from emlyon and the CFJ.

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Grégory Raymond

Grégory Raymond is Head of Research and co-founder of The Big Whale. A specialist at the intersection of traditional finance and digital assets, he has been covering the regulatory, institutional and technological developments of the sector since 2017 for an audience of decision-makers: ,banks, asset managers and fintechs. He is also the author of Bitcoin & Cryptos: L'enjeu du siècle (Talent Éditions, 2025), a book built around interviews with key figures from the ecosystem.

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