Bitcoin Sentiment is Dire

With a decline of more than 30%, Bitcoin (using the IBIT ETF as a proxy) was the worst performing asset class in the first half of 2026.

You’d be hard pressed to find a more depressing price chart than IBIT:

For awhile leading up to highs last year, Bitcoin was one of the most loved areas of the market for bulls to trade.  That sentiment has completely flipped with Bitcoin’s price doing nothing but declining for the last nine months.

Conventional market wisdom says to buy low and sell high, but price action does a funny thing to investor psychology.  When prices trend lower and lower, sentiment tends to worsen, and vice versa.  This is why sentiment is seen as a contrarian indicator.  When investors and traders are universally bullish on price after a big run higher, it’s usually a sign that all the good news is priced in.  When those same people are universally bearish after continuous declines, you’re often at or near a low point.

Bitcoin can still go a lot lower, and no one knows what the future holds.  But below is a look at where Bitcoin sentiment currently stands.

In our mid-year 2026 investor sentiment survey of Bespoke clients, we asked for their stance on Bitcoin going into the second half of 2026 and beyond.

While bullish sentiment towards stocks was above 60% in our mid-year survey, it was just 13% for Bitcoin!  12% were “moderately bullish,” while just 1% were “strongly bullish.”

At the end of 2025, Bitcoin bullish sentiment was at 35% (still pretty low), so it fell 22 percentage points in the first half of 2026.

On the flip side, neutral sentiment towards Bitcoin jumped from 40% at the end of 2025 up to 47%, while bearish sentiment rose from 25% to 40%.

While just 1% of survey-takers are “strongly bullish” on Bitcoin, 10% are “strongly bearish.”

Given these results, only a small percentage of market participants currently view Bitcoin positively, while a much larger number are very bearish.  And this is after Bitcoin has already been cut in half from its highs!

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