Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz sees the crypto industry at a turning point. It is not a single event, but a structural change that is behind the current Bitcoin downturn.
• Galaxy CEO Novogratz: The age of speculation in crypto is over
• Bitcoin fell to around $60,000 in early February 2026
• Novogratz does not see a single trigger, but rather a structural change among market participants
Not a “smoking gun”, but a profound change
The Bitcoin price has lost massively in value since its all-time high in October 2025 at around 126,000 US dollars and temporarily fell to around 60,000 US dollars at the beginning of February 2026. Many market observers had expected another bull market in 2026, especially given a crypto-friendly Trump administration and expectations of a crypto market structure law. Instead, the market experienced the exact opposite.
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At the CNBC Digital Finance Forum on February 10, 2026 in New York, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz assessed the situation. As CNBC’s report shows, Novogratz does not see a single trigger for the decline. There was a clear breach of trust in the FTX collapse in November 2022, when Bitcoin collapsed by 22 percent in one day. This time, however, such a trigger is missing. He described the situation as a phase in which the composition of market participants is fundamentally changing and explained that there is simply no obvious culprit.
The October crash as a turning point
According to CNBC, Novogratz pointed to the massive leverage wipeout on October 10, 2025 as a key event in the current market weakness. On that day, around $19.37 billion worth of leveraged positions were liquidated within 24 hours, affecting more than 1.6 million traders. It was the largest liquidation event in crypto market history, triggered by US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 100 percent tariff on Chinese imports.
According to Novogratz, this event wiped out a large portion of retail investors and market makers and put significant pressure on prices. Crypto is about narratives and stories, says Novogratz. If you wipe out a large portion of these market participants, it won’t be possible to put things back together so quickly.
As part of the Galaxy Digital quarterly figures on February 3, 2026, Novogratz had already pointed out that long-term Bitcoin holders (so-called “OGs”) are increasingly realizing profits. This sales process is self-reinforcing: once you start selling, you keep selling. Novogratz referred to a sale of over 80,000 Bitcoins worth around $9 billion by an investor from the early stages of Bitcoin, brokered by Galaxy.
From speculation to real-world assets
However, Novogratz also sees a positive aspect in the current correction. The previous age of speculation is gradually being replaced as institutional investors with a lower willingness to take risks are increasingly entering the market. Private investors do not come to the crypto market to earn eleven percent annually, but to earn eight, ten or thirty times their stake, he explained at the forum. In the future, this expectation will be replaced by a more sober approach: banking and financial services will be made accessible worldwide via the existing crypto infrastructure, with a focus on tokenized real-world assets and correspondingly lower returns.
The crypto asset manager Grayscale also classified the current market phase in a similar way. In its “Market Byte” research report published on February 10, 2026, Grayscale currently sees Bitcoin more closely linked to growth-oriented tech stocks than to gold. In the short term, Bitcoin behaves more like a growth stock, but in the long term, the limited availability and independence of central banks continue to support the digital gold thesis. Grayscale research director Zach Pandl emphasized that it would be unrealistic to expect Bitcoin to replace gold as a monetary anchor in the short term, but that with increasing Digitalization the global economy and the expansion of tokenized markets such a development is possible in the long term.
Novogratz cited the so-called CLARITY Act, a planned crypto market structure law in the USA, as a potential catalyst for a recovery. He expects its passage and explained that the industry needs the law for many reasons, not least to give the crypto market a boost.
D. Maier / editorial team finanzen.net
Image sources: 3Dsculptor / Shutterstock.com, Hi my name is Jacco / shutterstock.com
