Binance Research’s new report titled “Half-year 2026: Macro & Bitcoin” has shed more light on how the cryptocurrency performed in the first half of the year. The report showed that Bitcoin declined by 32% year-to-date, and it is currently down by over 50% from its all-time high of $126,080, which it hit in October 2025.
The decline was the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization’s third straight quarterly loss. Per the report, the loss coincided with a repricing across global markets that is being referred to as “re-anchoring.”
This re-anchoring refers to all the following actions:
- A shift away from central-bank support
- Consumer spending
- Rich valuations toward a tighter Federal Reserve
- AI-driven capital expenditure cycle
- Earnings-led returns
The report pointed out that Bitcoin absorbed the sharpest hit of any major asset class in that transition, even as its underlying market structure held up better than in prior cycles.
Why is the Fed now Bitcoin’s biggest headwind?
Per Binance Research, the shift in how markets price Federal Reserve policy was one of the biggest drivers of Bitcoin’s slide.
The implied spread between expected and actual Fed funds rates moved from approximately −230 basis points (bp) in August 2024, when deep cuts were priced in, to around +33 bp by mid-2026. Markets are now reportedly assigning roughly 80% odds of a hike by December.
The new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh unsettled markets in his debut press conference by focusing on inflation rather than employment, and this caused short-term Treasury yields to go up. That repricing has moved in near-lockstep, inversely, with Bitcoin’s price over the past year.
According to Binance Research, AI hardware investment was responsible for about 40% of the first quarter GDP growth. The report pointed out that it was the first time since 2009 that it surpassed consumers’ contribution.
Meanwhile, US equities kept climbing through the same period; the S&P 500 rose 18.5% over twelve months.
However, earnings have been driving the advance, as forward price-to-earnings multiples actually compressed from 22x to about 20x.
Binance Research reads current Fed pricing as “too hawkish.”
Japan is also responsible for another pressure point, even though it is relatively less discussed.
The Bank of Japan’s balance sheet has contracted by ¥125.3 trillion, or 16.4%, from its 2024 peak. It is reportedly the largest such contraction in its history. The yen still touched a 40-year low near 162 yen per dollar in June, even after a rate hike to 1%, a level that came despite record central-bank intervention.
Binance Research pointed out that Japan is constructive and not complacent as it enters into the second half of the year. It also stated that rate pricing is hawkish and wrote, “the AI capex cycle points to a slowdown rather than a stall, and earnings have replaced multiples as the engine of returns.”
Has Bitcoin entered the final stage of its correction?
Onchain data suggest the market is deep into capitulation territory. By the end of June, around 10.83 million $BTC were held at an unrealized loss compared with 9.22 million $BTC still in profit. It is the first time losses have outnumbered profits this cycle.
It was also stated in the report, “Combined with a 50%+ drawdown and 275 days since October 2025 highs, this places $BTC within a plausible, though unconfirmed, historical bottoming window into Q4 2026.”
Despite its current state, Bitcoin is still the dominant player in crypto, as it still accounted for 57 to 60% of the market throughout H1. The report stated that this is because it remains the preferred fallback exposure during the sell-off.
In times when the dominance dipped, the report says that the outflows were either going into stablecoins or out of the market.
Altcoins were not in season as there was no sustained rotation into them. Cryptopolitan reported that selling reached new peak levels in June.
How did Bitcoin hold up against other assets?
Bitcoin’s position as a portfolio diversifier was put to the test in the first half of 2026, and it did not perform great.
$BTC underperformed every major asset class in H1, falling around 32% while US equity indices closed the half near record highs and gold ended down about 7%.
Bitcoin sold off ahead of equities during bouts of macro stress but then failed to participate when stocks staged their AI-led recovery.
Binance Research says that this is due to Bitcoin’s ETF-era structure, where it trades continuously. This allows it to reprice to shifting rate expectations faster than traditional markets can.
The report concluded that Bitcoin did not offer the perks of a stable hedge in the first half. It behaved more like a liquidity-sensitive macro asset whose diversification value changes ground depending on the market regime.
Why did Bitcoin’s usual buyers turn into sellers?
The demand channels that powered Bitcoin’s prior rallies reversed in H1. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their first-ever year-to-date net outflow; a record $4.5 billion was pulled out in June alone, over three-quarters of it from BlackRock’s IBIT.
Corporate treasury buying, meanwhile, became almost entirely dependent on Strategy, whose enterprise valuation fell below the value of its own Bitcoin holdings for the first time, a threshold that made further share issuance dilutive rather than accretive.
The company disposed of 32 $BTC in May, its first sale since 2022, followed by 1,363 $BTC in the last days of June, both moves aimed at supporting its reserve and distribution obligations rather than signaling a change in conviction.
Public miners added to the pressure, selling at a record pace as hash price hit an all-time low. That stress has widened the gap between pure-play miners and operators pivoting toward AI and high-performance computing contracts, a shift that is reshaping how miners allocate power, capital, and balance-sheet capacity and one that could reduce their reliance on Bitcoin sales over time, even as it diverts resources away from mining itself.
The report also notes that quantum-computing risk to Bitcoin’s cryptography moved from theoretical research toward concrete migration planning in H1, with draft protocol proposals now circulating, a longer-term diligence item for institutional holders.
