Bitcoin News: BTC Is an Asset Class That Has Withstood 17 Years of Stress

Key Insights:

• In the latest Bitcoin news, Eric Balchunas says that the 17-year survival of BTC USD price and multiple recoveries make tulip-bubble comparisons outdated.
• He notes Bitcoin is still up roughly 250% over three years and gained 122% last year despite recent pullbacks.
• Balchunas argues non-productive assets like gold or art are still valued, challenging claims that Bitcoin lacks utility.

Picture this, It’s 1637 in the Netherlands, with no knowledge about any Bitcoin news and tulip bulbs are changing hands for the price of a luxury canal house.

The frenzy peaks, then crashes, leaving fortunes in dust and a cautionary tale etched in history books.

Fast forward nearly four centuries, and here we are in 2025, with Bitcoin dipping 27% from its October high of $125,481 to $91,972, and the inevitable comparisons start bubbling up again.

But here’s the thing , as Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas laid out in a sharp X thread on December 6, BTC USD isn’t some fragile flower doomed to wilt after one bloom.

It’s an asset that’s taken haymaker after haymaker over 17 years and still stands tall, up 250% over the past three years alone despite the bruises.

In a market where euphoria and despair trade places like old frenemies, this Bitcoin news from Balchunas feels like a timely gut check, reminding us that endurance isn’t just a buzzword — it’s Bitcoin’s secret sauce.

The Tulip Trap: Why Bitcoin News Rejects the Easy Analogy?

Balchunas cut straight to the chase in his main post: “Tulips rose and collapsed in like 3yrs. Punched once in face and KO’d. Bitcoin has comeback from like 6-7 haymakers to reach ATHs and has survived 17yrs.”

The Dutch mania unfolded in a frantic three-year window, stealth phase to blow-off top, before evaporating, as that iconic chart illustrates with its jagged ascent from 1634 to 1637.

Bitcoin? It’s weathered the 2011 Mt. Gox hack, the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, the 2018 ICO winter, COVID volatility in 2020, the 2022 Terra/Luna implosion, and now this November cooldown.

Each punch landed harder than the last, yet BTC clawed back to new highs 17 years running since Satoshi’s genesis block.

What makes this Bitcoin news resonate is the context. We’re not talking abstract history; Balchunas, a Bloomberg senior ETF analyst who’s tracked spot Bitcoin funds since their January 2024 debut, knows the numbers cold.

Those Bitcoin ETFs alone hold $126 billion in AUM as of December 6, per SosoValue data, surviving $3.8 billion in November outflows without blinking.

Tulips didn’t have institutional ballast — no BlackRock, no Fidelity stepping in with $15.2 billion YTD inflows to steady the ship.

And let’s not forget the returns: Even after this pullback, Bitcoin’s three-year gain sits at 250%, with a 122% pop in 2024 that outpaced the S&P 500’s 24%. That’s not a one-hit wonder; that’s compounding resilience.

BTC USD Price: Endurance and Utility

Balchunas didn’t stop at survival stats. In a follow-up post he added,

“If you think about bitcoin’s year, all that really happened (at least up to this point) is it gave up the extreme excess of last year. It rose +122% and was 5x everything under sun. So even if 2025 ends up flat or moderately down year and it’s still operating at its 50%-ish ann avg.”

It’s a storyteller’s nudge, Bitcoin isn’t crashing; it’s exhaling after a sugar rush. Last year’s mania phase, with media frenzy and public greed peaking at $108,000, felt like the tulip blow-off.

Now, in this “return to normal” dip, fear and capitulation test the weak hands, but the smart money, institutions with $71 billion in BlackRock’s IBIT alone — holds firm.

And here’s where the tulip parallel crumbles hardest. In his third post, Balchunas wrote:

“Yes, bitcoin and tulips are both non-productive assets. But so is gold, so is a picasso painting, rare stamps- would you compare those to tulips? Not all assets have to ‘be productive’ to be valuable.”

Spot on. Gold’s $13 trillion market cap doesn’t yield dividends; Picasso’s works sit in vaults appreciating on scarcity and story.

Bitcoin News Sentiment

Bitcoin fits right in, a digital store of value with verifiable scarcity (21 million cap) and growing utility, from remittances in El Salvador to corporate treasuries like MicroStrategy’s 650,000 BTC hoard.

Over five years, the Sharpe ratio of BTC USD clocks 1.2, edging gold’s 0.8 for risk-adjusted returns, per CoinMetrics Q4 2025 data. Tulips? They were a commodity fad, not an asset class.

The replies tell their own tale, a microcosm of Bitcoin news sentiment. Colin Talks Crypto quipped that: “The thing is some ppl just hate this asset and want to enrage the ppl who like it. Let’s not beat around the bush. We’re talking about @PeterSchiff here. lol” — nailing the rage-bait dynamic with Peter Schiff’s gold evangelism as the perennial foil.

Garry Krug, head of BTC strategy at AIFinyo, dropped a poetic thread:

“Bubbles don’t survive multiple cycles, regulatory battles, geopolitical stress, halvings, exchange failures and still return to new highs. That kind of durability is the opposite of a mania.”

Bitcoin News in the Bigger Picture: Cycles, Not Crashes

Zoom out, and Balchunas’s thread lands like a reality anchor in choppy waters. Bitcoin’s not immune to cycles, that 50% annual average return hides brutal drawdowns like 2022’s 77% plunge but it’s engineered for them.

The April 2024 halving slashed issuance to 3.125 BTC USD per block, tightening supply just as ETF demand ramped. Fast-forward to now: Whale accumulation added 18,000 BTC in November despite the dip per Santiment report, while 74% of supply stays dormant over 12 months, per Glassnode data. MVRV Z-Score at 1.8 screams undervalued, below the 2.0 bull trigger.

This Bitcoin news feels especially poignant mid-December, with PCE inflation data dropping December 5 at 2.8% — teeing up 85% odds for a Fed cut, CME FedWatch shows.

If history rhymes, we’re in the “disbelief” trough of the chart, where smart money accumulates quietly before the awareness phase reignites.

Balchunas wrapped it: “People overanalyzing it IMO.” Fair point, assets cool off, consolidate, then compound. Bitcoin’s done it seven times since inception.

In the end, that tulip chart is a beautiful relic, a warning for fleeting manias. But Bitcoin? It’s no bulb. It’s a battle-tested asset class, scarred but standing, with 17 years of proof in the blockchain.

As the new year looms, this Bitcoin news invites a simple question: In the face of endurance like that, why bet against it?