Early Bitcoin Architect Adam Back Says Volatility Fits Current Market Cycle

Adam Back, whose Hashcash technology was cited in the 2008 Bitcoin white paper, is now chief executive of Blockstream. Bitcoin undergoes a halving roughly every four years, cutting new coin supply by 50%, and such events have historically been accompanied by bull markets and pullbacks. Back views the current volatility as consistent with the market cycle and a period of rapid adoption, rather than a failure of Bitcoin’s fundamentals.

On February 25, 2026, Back said Bitcoin had fallen about 26% over the previous year. On April 29, he said Morgan Stanley had entered the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market and that its wealth-management network had a scale of $8 trillion. Although BlackRock recommends an allocation of 2% to 4%, broad institutional participation could still take 1 year to 18 months.