Market Shock: Bitcoin Crash Explained + ETF Updates on Gold, Silver & Stocks

Nobody on Wall Street knows why Bitcoin is crashing. I'm going to tell you why. Plus, we're going to take a look at some of the other major asset classes and see what's going on in the ETF market. And we're also going to talk about safety as it relates to Bitcoin because Bitcoin's been sold and marketed as a safe investment. But is it really so? Let's take a look at the markets through the lens of ETFs.

Beginning with some major asset classes, US stocks as measured by S&P 500, SPY, pretty much flat on the year. You can see from this chart that we had gains which have now been lost. Some of these other asset classes though have been giving performance. Global real estate making some noise is the leader right now, up just over six, actually 8%. So, global real estate, RE performing well. And then you've got SDCI, which tracks commodities getting a lot of strength from the metals. We're going to take a look at that in a second. And then, of course, Bitcoin, as measured by IBIT, down about 21.5%. So, that's your big picture view. This is since the start of 2026.

Also, since commodities have been so much in the news, everyone's been talking about inflation. Of course, it seems at least to be slowing a little bit, but still commodities and prices have remained up. And most investors miss exposure to commodities. I've talked about it so many times. An easy way to plug that hole is ticker symbol SDCI, five-star rated Morning Star ETF that has broad exposure to commodities as a group. So check out this particular ETF if you do not have exposure to commodities or maybe you're looking to improve or enhance your exposure to that key and core asset class.

Now sector-wise S&P 500, we can slice it up into 11 different groups. The leaders so far this year are energy, oh my gosh, up over 21.5%, XLE, materials also doing well. XLB ahead by over 17.5% and then the defensive sector XLP consumer staples up just a nudge over 15%. And is the market getting defensive? Well that defensive sector consumer staples is a leader and then you look at some of those offensive sectors like technology and communication services lagging. So, we are seeing a little bit of rotation. To what extent that persists or maybe develops, we'll just have to wait and see. But right now, the momentum is to the upside for those commodity linked industry groups.

Let's take a look at this a little bit closer. ERX, which aims for 2x or 200% daily leverage to energy. This is one of the top performing ETFs since the beginning of the year, up over 45%. And then of course we talked about XLE which is the unleveraged version of the energy ETF tracking just the energy stocks in the S&P 500. But ERX again keep that particular ETF on your radar for enhanced exposure or leverage exposure to the energy sector. And really that's the time you want to be using leverage if you're going to use it is when the market that you're trading has momentum in the same direction of your trade whether that's a bullish trade or a bearish trade.

Here's another area that still has upside and I think as long as we've got a government that's dysfunctional, a government with runaway spending, a government with runaway debt, a government with inparty fighting that is again going to in the midst of another shutdown. How many government shutdowns have we had? I've lost track and it seems like they're growing in frequency and scale and that bodess well I think for assets like gold like silver assets that are an alternative to fiat currencies and also you know you look at that mounting debt we're going to be at $40 trillion as a nation that doesn't even include the costs associated with Medicare and social security which are much higher than national debt. So you add all that together and I think the runway for assets like gold and silver are very good. I also by the way think that applies to Bitcoin.

But the problem with Bitcoin right now and we're going to talk about that in a second is too much leverage in that market. We've got to see some delever and basically a wipeout of the Bitcoin market. Get some of these players out of the market and then I think the Bitcoin market will heal itself and have some normaly nug which tracks gold miners 2x that's 200% daily leverage and then Jug which tracks gold miners juniors or small cap both of these ETFs are great performers this year up over 30% and then GDX which is the unleveraged version to gold miners head by just a nudge over 21% you can see from this chart that they were up much much higher earlier in the year they've come down back to earth but again I think the overall trend if we look at the bigger picture remains up for gold miners in a related area what about silver miners you know everyone talked about the hot performance of silver last year and it's continuing into this year silvervr put that particular ETF on your ticker because it's got exposure one ETF symbol to both physical silver and silver miners. So, you don't have to do two trades, one for physical silver and then one for silver miners. SLVR has you covered. It's already up almost 19% this year.

GBUG is an actively managed gold miner miners ETF up over 18%. Copper and then COP J, which is the small cap version of U COP. both of those are performing strongly up double digits. Now, the Wall Street Journal ran an article which I don't know if you caught this, but they talked about a new crypto winter is here. And interestingly, even the biggest bulls aren't certain why. And I read through the article and the explanations of why Bitcoin prices were crashing and are in a bare market were rather fantastic. And I don't mean good fantastic, I mean puzzling fantastic. as if like no one knows what's going on. No one can really explain what's going on. I mean, to me it's rather simple. the biggest problem.

Well, we'll talk about that in a second, but on social media, Graham Steuffen, I think it is, or Stephen, he's a pretty big YouTuber, was blaming Bitcoin ETFs for the crash and basically saying Bitcoin ETFs are to blame for a lot of the problems in the Bitcoin market. Actually, that's not really true because all the issues currently unfolding in the Bitcoin market specifically with Strategy which is run by Michael Sailor which has now turned itself into a so-called Bitcoin treasury company and it's experimenting with debt issuing debt to buy Bitcoin. This entire experiment began in 2020 which is four years before Bitcoin ETFs were even launched. So undisiplined credit goes back four years prior to whenever when Bitcoin ETFs actually became tradable. And so the other important thing to remember is that Bitcoin ETFs do not do many of the crazy things that these Bitcoin treasury companies are allowed to do. Bitcoin ETFs do not borrow money to buy Bitcoin. They don't use margin. They don't use credit. They don't issue debt. They don't pledge their Bitcoin as collateral. They don't do any of this stuff.

So, let's stop blaming Bitcoin ETFs for the volatility because they're not to blame. The problem here, as you probably have figured out, is that these Bitcoin treasury companies which have been acquiring Bitcoin at any and all different prices, mostly prices that are much higher than what they are right now. And so, all these balance sheets are underwater. And it's a problem when you're using leverage. And you can see here the number one top Bitcoin so-called Bitcoin treasury company is Strategy run by Michael Sailor. I did a video all about this and why Bitcoin specifically as it relates to Strategy has been crashing. So I'm going to put the link in the description section below. You can check that out for a deeper dive. But again, this trend of these Bitcoin treasury companies, all these companies, especially the ones that are using leverage need to to be wiped out. They need to be flushed out. And the ones that own their Bitcoin without leverage, well, that's fine. But the ones that are overleveraging like strategy, that's a problem.

And by the way, Michael Sailor, who's been celebrated in the Bitcoin community as a savior, he's wonderful. He's great. He's a champion of Bitcoin. Well, that's fine. I mean, no one's arguing. This is not an anti-Bitcoin argument, folks. Let's not convolute the conversation as Sailor consistently does, right? Whenever whenever he's attacked or scrutinized, all of a sudden he changes direction. I don't know what the behavioral bias is. I'll have to look it up, but where they all of a sudden change direction and focus the argument on something completely unrelated. for example, saying, "Well, you don't understand Bitcoin." Well, we are not talking about that. We're talking about your use of leverage and margin and specifically the running up of debt to acquire Bitcoin. That's that's what we're talking about, Mr. Sailor. And by the way, he's got a long history, a proven history of losing billions of dollars in a very short time. He lost $6 billion in one day way back in 2000. So he he's done it before. He's going to do it again.

I also compared him to the Ocean Gate scandal and you know so many similarities between what happened with the Titan submersible implosion and Stockton Rush who was the CEO of that faded company and what's happening with Strategy. So many so many similarities. So again, I'll hit the or hit the description section below. I've got a link to that to that video. The main point here, too, I want I guess you might say there's a key takeaway is that Bitcoin, even though it's been sold and marketed as a defense against the fiat currencies and, you know, runaway government spending and runaway government debt and the government dysfunction and, you know, also, you know, supposed to offer some privacy and all that other stuff. And you know that that that's fine. But at the same time, Bitcoin from an investment perspective, if we really want to build a architecturally sound investment portfolio, which should be the goal for everyone, we need to put Bitcoin, if we're going to own it, in the right container within the investment portfolio. So Bitcoin is not a safety asset. Even if it was skyrocketing in value, which it's not doing right now, it's not a safety asset because it does not meet the minimum standards of safety, which is what? Can anybody remember what the minimum standards of safety are? Can you tell me please what are the minimum standards of safety for the safety container of an investment portfolio?

This is why I launched a class to educate you and for some of you to re-educate you about what safety means in the context of an investment portfolio. So enroll in that course and there are three standards, three minimum standards which Bitcoin does not meet that are explained in that class and I'm not going to tell you so you take the class but the point here is that Bitcoin does not meet minimum standards of safety. If your portfolio is going to be safe, this particular buggy, you need to use the right types of assets that provide true safety. And I'm talking about protection of your principle, protection from volatility, protection of your income, and of course, you need that asset to provide liquidity. And it has to have all of those attributes, not not one of three, two of three, three of three. It has to have everything. So, that's the bottom line.

And of course, I've got a link to that safety course. We also have other two other courses on retirement security as well as habits of the investing. Great. We've also got some upcoming episodes on ETF guide TV, metals in motion. We're going to be talking about uranium. If you missed our previous episode, we focused on copper. That was for our January episode, so hit that playlist. We've also got new episodes of First Look ETF coming up with the New York Stock Exchange and also ETF battles. ETF battles. We got some really good competitions or contests coming up. We're going to be looking at Buffered ETFs, which is going to be an interesting one. I think this is the first Buffered ETF contest that we're going to be looking up or doing rather. Dave, one of our loyal viewers recommended it. And so we we've got a great program on ETF battles focused on buffered ETFs lined up. So that does it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed the show. I'm Ronda Legy with ETF Guide TV. Hit me up in the comments section below and we'll see you on the next episode.