Financial crisis and recession: bitcoin lost 77 percent in the 2022 rate turn

So far, bitcoin has not protected against losses in a financial crisis or recession. In the last three major downturns, the bitcoin price fell further than stocks and gold each time: by 52 percent in the 2020 Covid crash, by 77 percent in the 2022 rate turn and by 28 percent in the 2025 tariff shock. Afterwards, however, it often recovered faster than the stock market once central banks were pumping money back into the markets. Anyone wanting to understand what crypto does in an economic crisis therefore has to look less at the economy and more at interest rates and liquidity.

That contradicts the image many people have of bitcoin as "digital gold". The price data show a risk asset that is sold alongside tech stocks in a panic and gains more strongly in a recovery. For you as an investor in Germany, this is above all a question of position size and how you buy in, for example through regular purchases with one of the providers in our bitcoin buying comparison. The following sections run the numbers on the crises of 2020, 2022 and 2025 and assess where the economy stands in Novembe...