Charlie Bilello's Table Puts Bitcoin (BTC) and Gold as 2026's Two Worst Assets, Down 7.3% and 7.5%

Twelve months of fading risk appetite had already put the Bitcoin market on the defensive, and the annual scorecard has now confirmed how deep the damage runs. A return table that chief market strategist Charlie Bilello published on X ranks the performance of major assets across 2026, and for the first time in the table's history the two bottom slots belong to Bitcoin (BTC) and gold simultaneously. Measured as of October 23, the Bitcoin (BTC) price stands 7.3% lower year to date, while gold has lost 7.5%, leaving the two oldest stores of value as the year's clearest laggards. The asset trades near $79,727 on Tuesday, down 0.6% over the past 24 hours, so the market has so far taken the ranking without a fresh leg lower. Turnover has stayed heavy at $14.3 billion over the same window, consistent with repositioning rather than panic. Bilello's chart scores annual returns for the major asset classes back to 2011, and no previous year shows Bitcoin and gold sharing the cellar, a combination he described as one no prior year has produced. The finding lands hard because both assets entered 2026 with defensive credentials intact: gold after a dominant 2025, Bitcoin still pitched as portfolio collateral for institutional treasuries. A year that was supposed to reward safety has instead penalized the safety trade and the risk trade at once. The headline figure also does not capture where prices stood when the year opened; Bitcoin (BTC) has been surrendering earlier gains for months, so the 7.3% loss understates the drawdown investors who bought the highs have absorbed. Still, the simultaneity is the core of Bilello's point: when hedges and risk assets fail in the same calendar, there are few places left to hide, and his framing treats the pairing as without precedent in the modern asset record.

Our composite reading places the asset in a defined downtrend with room to move either way. The strongest support sits at $78,068, a level scored 98 out of 100 on our scale, while overhead resistance begins at $81,624, scored 79 out of 100, where the 20- and 50-day moving averages converge. Momentum is weak but not washed out: the relative strength index prints 40.31 and the Fear & Greed Index sits at 48 out of 100, neutral territory rather than capitulation. Both levels feed our Bitcoin technical analysis page, which updates as the tape moves. A daily close below $78,068 would undercut the dip-buying case the bulls below are leaning on; reclaiming $81,624 would put the $100,000 year-end calls back within reach.

A 120.6% Annualized Record

Bitcoin's long-term ledger complicates the bearish headline. The strategist's own table shows the asset still owning the best annualized return of anything it tracks: 120.6% per year since 2011, a pace that beat every major asset class in 11 of the past 15 years. Gold has compounded at roughly 6% annually over the same stretch, a gap that frames this year's pairing as timing rather than verdict. That asymmetry underpins the accumulation case circulating among prominent investors this week. Michaël van de Poppe argues Bitcoin (BTC) now looks undervalued against gold and says the current window is the moment to accumulate aggressively, planning to rotate the position into gold a year or two from now, once gold's correction ends. It is the conviction at the heart of Bitcoin maximalism: a fixed supply schedule, tightened by each halving and secured by proof of work, that rewards investors willing to HODL through multi-year drawdowns. Mike Alfred put up to $1 million behind a wager last week that Bitcoin touches $100,000 before it falls to $60,000. Mike Novogratz, chief executive of Galaxy Digital (GLXY), reads the odds the same way: he sees the chance of $100,000 by year-end as greater than the chance of $50,000. Galaxy's own research desk reached a comparable conclusion in our earlier coverage of Alex Thorn's bottoming case, which pointed to thinning dormant supply. Readers who want to place this drawdown inside the longer cycle can follow a Bitcoin Rainbow Chart walkthrough, which maps price against the long-run trend. The bull reading stops holding on one condition: if 2026 closes in the red, it would be the first time Bitcoin posts consecutive annual losses, breaking the 15-year pattern of recovery on which both the table and the year-end calls rest.