I just noticed something that has traders quite worried this week. Blue Owl Capital announced the sale of $1.4 billion in loans to generate liquidity in one of its private credit funds, and immediately analysts started making uncomfortable connections to what happened nearly two decades ago. Blue Owl’s shares fell around 14% in the last few days and are almost 50% below a year ago. But what’s interesting is that other private capital giants as well—Blackstone, Apollo Global, and Ares Management—also suffered notable declines. For those who lived through the 2008 crisis, this brings back memories they would rather forget.

In August 2007, two Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed after massive losses in subprime mortgage-backed securities. At the same time, BNP Paribas froze withdrawals in several funds because it literally couldn’t value U.S. mortgage assets. Credit markets seized up. Liquidity disappeared. What looked like an isolated problem turned into the 2008 crisis we know. Mohamed El-Erian, the former Pimco executive director, raised the question everyone is asking: is this our “canary in the coal mine” moment similar to August 2007? He pointed out that there are systemic risks, but probably not on the same magnitude as that crisis.

Now, what does all this mean for Bitcoin? This is where it gets interesting. In the short term, when credit tightens, risk assets take a hit, including BTC and cryptocurrencies in general. Look at what happened in 2020 with the Covid crisis: Bitcoin fell nearly 70% in just a few weeks. But the response was massive. The Federal Reserve injected trillions of dollars into the economy, and Bitcoin went from under $4,000 to more than $65,000 in about a year.

The 2007–2008 sequence was similar: initial stress in credit, denial in the stock market, banking contagion, and then massive intervention by central banks. If Blue Owl is truly the first domino to fall, as some analysts suggest, we could see private credit replace subprime mortgages as the trigger. And if that leads to another intervention by central banks, well, historically that has been bullish for Bitcoin.

Here’s the fascinating part: Bitcoin was born directly out of the 2008 crisis. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator, was disillusioned with governments and central banks that could create trillions of dollars with just a few clicks. The vision was to create digital money that enabled direct payments between people without financial intermediaries or state intervention—an immediate alternative to the system that had just collapsed.

The first block of Bitcoin, the Genesis Block of January 3, 2009, included a headline from The Times of London: “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” That day, Bitcoin was practically worthless, and only a few people knew about it. Seventeen years later, it has a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.

Of course, Bitcoin today is different. It’s no longer anti-establishment; it’s part of the system. The largest asset managers consider it essential in portfolios. Exchange-traded funds offer it to the general public. Some governments even buy it for their strategic reserves. The current price is around $77.43K.

The question is whether Blue Owl’s problem signals another bullish cycle for Bitcoin. If this event turns out to be the “canary” predicting another significant crisis similar to the 2008 crisis, then the global financial system could face an uncomfortable awakening. And Bitcoin, regardless of how it has evolved over these 17 years, could end up being exactly what it was designed to be: the solution.