Bitcoin’s Tuesday slide to $87,895 revived a common market trend: attaching a single, clean story to messy stops, flows, and dynamic price action. In this case, the driving force is quantum computing, which could be an “existential threat” that is said to explain Bitcoin’s underperformance against gold, which has hit an all-time high of $4,888.
The quantum angle gained momentum after a post by Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures. Carter wrote: “Bitcoin’s “mysterious” underperformance (due to quantum) is the only important story this year. The market is talking that the devs are not listening,” and he shared a tweet about the news that Wall Street strategist Christopher Wood removed the 10% Bitcoin share from the model’s portfolio due to concerns that the quantum of the quantum procession of the quantum can reduce the long term.
Is Bitcoin Collapsing With Quantum Fear?
Not everyone who buys property buys the conclusion of price action. Well-known Bitcoin advocate Vijay Boyapati, while admitting that quantum computing is a real problem, backed away from using it as the main explanation for why Bitcoin stalled and sold off.
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“While I agree that QC is a legitimate issue… I think price drowning invites a narrative to fill in an explanation gap where, imo, the real explanation is the opening of large assets once we get the magic number of whales (100k),” Boyapati wrote. “Increasing prices are like tidal waves – eventually lots of stuff breaks and hits the order books.”
Boyapati’s broader point is that market structure can do a lot of damage to itself if a large scale starts to spread and confidence cracks.
“Considering the nature-dependent mechanism and the feedback loops involved in the bull run that continues in the narrative … the drop in price then causes people to doubt that Bitcoin will continue to rise and this will lead to more selling until you find an equilibrium of supply and demand at some lower price point,” he added. “This is what happened during Bitcoin bear markets – and I think we’re in for one.”
James Check, a famous Bitcoin on-chain analyst, the founder of Check on Chain, and a former Lead Analyst at Glassnode, is particularly biased with the view that quantum risk may be a hindrance to certain currencies, but not a dominant driver of the separation of gold and Bitcoin.
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“QC keeps some money, but this argument that gold is high and Bitcoin is low because of that is not the case,” he wrote. “Gold is in demand because kings buy it instead of wealth. This trend has been there since 2008, and it is growing rapidly after Feb-22.”
He also highlighted the supply-side pressure Bitcoin has already absorbed. “Bitcoin saw a sell-side from HODLers in 2025 that would kill all previous bulls three times, and then again,” Checkmate said. The policy release, in his view, is effective but limited: price readiness is important, but putting all the downsides on it does not help traders understand what really moves the market.
In a short market review posted by Checkmate’s analytics brand Checkonchain, the immediate trigger for the move was described in terms of measuring the risk involved. Bitcoin “sold back to the $80k high,” “the bears took a bunch of strong long traders into the woods,” the note said, estimating that about $260 million in long exposure was removed.
Technically, the desk placed the structure as still similar to a bear flag, with a “pure air bag” between $70,000 and $81,000, language that points to support for a lower bid if sellers regain control.
At press time, BTC traded at $88,890.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
