BTC -52% from $126K ATH: cost-basis stress test for the ~$100K entry cohort
Spot traded down to $62,162, a 52% peak-to-trough drop from October's ATH — Portnoy's $100K entry frames the retail capitulation risk.
Bitcoin’s peak-to-trough decline has now cleared 52% from the October all-time high of $126,080, with spot printing lows of $62,162. Drawdowns of this size immediately following a fresh ATH are rare in BTC’s price history, making the current leg down a useful reference point for gauging how deep capital that entered near cycle tops is willing to sit underwater before capitulating.
A ~$100K cost basis, live and public
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has disclosed a BTC entry near $100,000, placing his cost basis roughly 38-40% above current spot and leaving the position millions of dollars underwater on an unrealized basis. Speaking on Fox Business with host Stuart Varney, Portnoy said: “Yeah, I’ve got regrets. I bought the thing at $100,000, so I mean, right now, I don’t know what’s going on.” He separately named Bitcoin the asset he’s “gotten more wrong” than any other in his trading history.
The figure is useful less as a signal and more as a marker: it approximates where a sizeable slice of late-cycle retail buying likely clustered, based on the timing of his entry near the six-figure level. Positions initiated in that zone are now sitting at comparable drawdown percentages to Portnoy’s own.
Hold-to-zero stance versus 2021 sell behavior
What differentiates this drawdown from a pure price observation is Portnoy’s stated intent: he has said he plans to hold the position through any further downside, including a scenario where price falls to zero. That’s a reversal from his documented behavior in 2021, when he sold a portion of his BTC holdings during a sharp decline and later called the exit a mistake once price recovered.
That earlier sell-then-regret sequence is the baseline against which the current no-capitulation commentary is being measured. He also posted on X that “Bitcoin and crypto are making me sad” — a sentiment data point that lines up with broader retail readings during the slide from the October top.
Tracking the variable, not the price
High-profile commentary like this functions as a proxy for retail positioning stress inside a >50% ATH drawdown rather than as a price signal in itself. The open variable for anyone tracking capitulation risk this cycle is whether holders with entries near $100K actually maintain a no-sell stance through further downside, or repeat the 2021 pattern of selling into weakness and reversing later.
Read more: Kraken Warns Macro Uncertainty Is Back in the Driver’s Seat for Bitcoin