Blue Owl liquidity crisis has investors bracing for 2008-style fallout — it could mean bitcoin's next bull run

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Blue Owl liquidity crisis has investors bracing for 2008-style fallout — it could mean bitcoin's next bull run Private-equity firm Blue Owl Capital (OWL) tumbled nearly 15% this week as it was forced to liquidate $1.4 billion in assets to pay investors looking to exit one of its private credit funds. By Stephen Alpher | Edited by Aoyon Ashraf Feb 21, 2026, 2:00 p.m. Make us preferred on Google Another Bear Stearns moment? (Getty images) What to know : Facing investor calls for redemptions, private-equity company Blue Owl Capital (OWL) late this week said it is selling $1.4 billion in assets. Former Pimco chief Mohamed El-Erian suggested the news was a "canary-in-the-coal-mine" moment similar to 2007's collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds that presaged the global financial crisis. The U.S. government's and Federal Reserve's ultimate response — bank bailouts, ZIRP and QE — helped birth Bitcoin in early 2009 and foster its run from an idea to a $1 trillion asset. Blue Owl Capital's (OWL) announcement this week that it would sell $1.4 billion in loans to raise liquidity for investors in a retail-focused private credit fund has triggered alarm bells across financial markets, with more than one prominent analyst drawing direct parallels to two Bear Stearns hedge fund collapses that foreshadowed the 2008 financial crisis — and for bitcoin BTC $ 68,251.85 investors, the implications could be profound. While there was no damage across the major stock market averages, Blue Owl shares fell about 14% for the week and are now lower by more than 50% year-over-year. Other major private-equity players, including Blackstone (BX), Apollo Global (APO), and Ares Management (ARES), also suffered sizable declines. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy policy . It stirred some painful memories for those who suffered through the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). In August 2007, two Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed after suffering heavy losses on subprime mortgage-backed securities, while BNP Paribas froze withdrawals in three funds, citing an inability to value U.S. mortgage assets. Credit markets seized up, liquidity evaporated, and what seemed like an isolated incident spiraled into the global financial crisis. "Is this a 'canary-in-the-coalmine' moment, similar to August 2007," asked former Pimco head Mohamed El-Erian . "There’s plenty to think about here, starting with the risks of an investing phenomenon in [artificial intelligence] markets that has gone too far," he continued. El-Erian was quick to point out that while the risks could be systemic, they don't appear to be anywhere near the magnitude of the 2008 crisis. Blue Owl's issue may or may not be another Bear Stearns moment, but if it is, what might that mean for bitcoin? First, private credit stress doesn't automatically mean bitcoin rallies. In fact, in the short term, tighter credit conditions can hurt risk assets, bitcoin and the broader crypto market among them. While bitcoin wasn't around during the 2008 meltdown (more on that later), the price action as the Covid crisis was unfolding — about a 70% decline from mid-February 2020 to mid-March — is illuminating. The U.S. government's Federal Reserve's eventual response, though, could be powerfully bullish for bitcoin. In 2020, trillions of dollars were injected into the economy, helping send BTC from a low of below $4,000 to more than $65,000 about a year later. The 2007-2008 playbook followed a similar trajectory: initial credit market stress, equity market denial, banking sector contagion, then massive central bank intervention. If Blue Owl represents the "first domino" — as former Peter Lynch associate George Noble suggested — the sequence could repeat with private credit replacing subprime mortgages as the trigger. "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" One of the major outcomes of the 2008 event was the creation of Bitcoin. The world's original cryptocurrency was born during the global financial crisis, in part because its mysterious creator (or creators), Satoshi Nakamoto, was disillusioned with governments and central banks conjuring up hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars with little more than a few keystrokes on a computer. Another major part of the world's largest digital asset was to create a parallel digital currency that would allow direct peer-to-peer online payments without the need for a financial institution or any government intervention. Essentially, hope was to create a direct alternative to a legacy banking system that had just proved fragile enough to bring down the global financial order through the meddling of centralized entities. In fact, Bitcoin's first-ever block, the so-called Genesis Block on Jan. 3, 2009, was embedded by Satoshi with "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." That was the headline in The Times of London that day as the U.K. government and the Bank of England engineered a response to the ongoing troubles in that country's financial sector. Worth essentially zero on that day and unknown to all but a small handful of "cypherpunks," bitcoin, 17 years later, has a market cap topping $1 trillion and has the largest asset managers on the planet calling it a near-essential asset to own for most portfolios. Bitcoin, as we now know it, of course, is different from the original cryptocurrency in 2009. Today, the notion of "store of value" and "digital gold" has come and gone. What was supposed to be anti-establishment has become part of the larger financial system. Large holders are hoarding massive amounts of bitcoin on their balance sheets, financial giants are offering bitcoin to the masses via exchange-traded funds, and even some government entities are buying for their strategic reserves. So does the Blue Owl failure mean another resurgence of Bitcoin's original thesis and, in turn, another bull run? Time will tell, but if this event turns out to be El-Erian's "canary," signalling another sizable crisis, the global financial system might be in for a rude awakening, and Bitcoin might just become the solution, whatever form it's taken 17 years later. Read more: Bitcoin's plunge signals coming AI crisis, but massive Fed response will drive new record high: Arthur Hayes Bitcoin News More For You Small investors are buying bitcoin. For a rally to succeed, the whales need to join in. By Shaurya Malwa | Edited by Sheldon Reback 6 hours ago Small wallets have increased their BTC holdings by 2.5% since October's all-time high while large holders trimmed 0.8%, Santiment data shows. What to know : Bitcoin wallets holding less than 0.1 BTC have increased their share of supply to the highest since mid-2024 even as the price holds around the mid-$60,000s. Larger holders with 10 to 10,000 bitcoins — the whales and sharks that typically drive major moves — have reduced their positions since the October peak. The divergence supports choppy, fragile price action because retail demand alone cannot sustain rallies when big wallets are distributing into every recovery. Read full story Latest Crypto News Small investors are buying bitcoin. 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