With markets bleeding and prices crashing continuously over the past few months, the trust in crypto is fading fast, especially from users who entered the space just over a year ago.
But, despite all the negativity, crypto is not disappearing. It is just no longer the most exciting thing in the room. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan put it plainly in a weekly memo this week:
“Who needs crypto when the Nasdaq-100 is up 43% year-over-year? With AI sucking all the oxygen out of the room, crypto is being forced to go through a painful metamorphosis: from momentum trade to contrarian bet.”
The Market Has a New Rival
Bitcoin is down 21% this year, while Ethereum, Solana, and XRP have fallen 33%, 37%, and 31%, respectively. The market has lost momentum as investors rotate toward AI stocks, robotics companies, and private market names, including SpaceX.
Anthropic filed for an IPO valued at approximately $965 billion on June 1, while Alphabet announced an $80 billion AI infrastructure financing plan with Berkshire Hathaway participating with $10 billion. SpaceX launches its Nasdaq roadshow this week, targeting a valuation of $1.765 trillion.
Together, these listings exert a gravitational pull on institutional capital that crypto is struggling to match.
NVIDIA has soared nearly 1,500% since the public debut of ChatGPT in late 2022, with AI-linked stocks now driving 45% of the S&P 500’s total valuation. Against that backdrop, crypto’s recent performance looks difficult to defend to institutional allocators.
War Added the Final Pressure
Then came the geopolitical shock. US military strikes on Iranian air defense sites near the Strait of Hormuz in late May were followed by Iranian retaliation, including missile attacks on Kuwait and strikes on Kuwait International Airport on June 3.
Oil surged. Treasury yields climbed. Risk appetite collapsed.
Crypto investment products recorded $1.67 billion in outflows last week alone, the second-largest weekly withdrawal of 2026, bringing three-week redemptions to $4.21 billion and pushing total assets under management down to $141 billion, the lowest since early April.
Where the Opportunity Hides
What Hougan’s note gets right that most market commentary misses is that this downturn is not uniform.
“Hyperliquid is up 72% in a month. BNB is up 17%. Zcash is up 50%. Stellar is up 44%. None of them are macro names. All of them have idiosyncratic stories that the market is rewarding,” Hougan wrote. “This is how the contrarian bet is playing out. When crypto stops being a momentum trade, fundamentals start to matter.”
Hougan added: “Investors still believe in crypto, but now that it’s a contrarian bet, they favor fundamentals over vibes.”
The structural case for crypto also remains intact beneath the noise. Stablecoin infrastructure is being embedded into Mastercard’s global settlement network and Deel’s payroll system.
The CLARITY Act carries 50% to 55% odds of passing, according to Galaxy and Polymarket. Spot Bitcoin ETFs still hold over $94 billion in assets despite the outflows.
Crypto in June 2026 is a patient-capital trade in an environment that rewards neither patience nor conviction particularly well. But historically, these moments often present opportunities when viewed with hindsight.
The post Should Investors Still Watch Crypto Amid AI IPOs, War Tensions, and $4 Billion ETF Exit? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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