Boomers Held Bitcoin ETFs Through a 54% Crash but the S&P 500 Rose 16%

Baby Boomers held their bitcoin ETF positions through a savage drawdown and analysts are calling it a show of discipline, but the benchmark they were quietly measured against tells a far more uncomfortable story.

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Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas praised bitcoin ETF holders for holding through a brutal drawdown, noting that lifetime cumulative net flows sit at $55 billion, down from a peak of $63 billion but up from a low of $50 billion. He called it “incredible intestinal fortitude from the Boomers given they saw a 50% drawdown”. But the scoreboard tells a different story. While retirees clung to their bitcoin ETFs, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) rose 15.5% over the past year, meaning the loyalty being praised kept those investors out of the best broad-market stretch in a decade.

Boomer Loyalty Trade That Missed the Rally

Bitcoin traded as high as $126,296 in October 2025 and as low as $57,717 in July 2026, a peak-to-trough drop of roughly 54%. It is down 34.4% over the past year and last changed hands near $76,850. MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR | MSTR Price Prediction), the closest listed proxy for concentrated bitcoin exposure, has been hit harder: shares are down 60.5% over the past year at $132. Meanwhile SPY sits at $762, up 11.8% year to date.