Pod 44: Bitcoin’s 2025 Stress Test: An End-of-Year Recap
Bitcoin hit new all-time highs in 2025—then absorbed the largest liquidation event in crypto history and… didn’t break.
In this year-end conversation, Danny Perez sits down with Cantilever partners Brendan Quinn and Jon to unpack what Bitcoin’s price action is actually telling us. From OG distribution and ETF-driven liquidity to Federal Reserve behavior, gold’s breakout, and why the four-year cycle narrative is fading, this episode reframes 2025 not as a disappointment—but as a stress test Bitcoin quietly passed.
We explore why Bitcoin’s pullback from ~$125K to the mid-$80Ks was driven by distribution, not failure; how ETFs absorbed systemic leverage without cascading damage; and what gold’s 2025 performance signals about liquidity and capital protection—not competition with Bitcoin.
The conversation also digs into Bitcoin’s technological edge over gold, why quantum risk is real but widely mispriced, and what 2026 could bring as consolidation, M&A, and institutional infrastructure accelerate.
This wasn’t a crisis.
It was maturation.