The liquidity crisis at Blue Owl is sounding an alarm to the market. What we need to pause and consider here is that this is not merely a problem for one company—it closely resembles events that foreshadowed the 2008 financial crisis.

This week, Blue Owl Capital, a private equity firm, announced the sale of assets worth $1.4 billion. It is a decision made in the face of investor redemption requests. In response, former PIMCO chief El-Erian points out that it is “the same warning bell as the collapse of Bear Stearns’ hedge funds in 2007.”

Recall how things unfolded back then. In August 2007, Bear Stearns’ hedge funds suffered massive losses related to subprime mortgages and collapsed. At the same time, BNP Paribas announced a freeze on withdrawals. At that stage, it seemed like an isolated event, but eventually the entire credit market stopped functioning and developed into the global financial crisis.

Now, Blue Owl’s stock price is down 14% this week, and down more than 50% year to date. Major private equity firms such as Blackstone, Apollo, and Ares have also seen similarly sharp declines. Whether this really is “the first domino” is something time will tell.

However, in the short term, stress in the credit markets could adversely affect risk assets overall. Bitcoin is no exception. During the COVID shock in 2020, BTC experienced a sharp drop of about 70%.

That said, there are lessons we can learn from history. When governments and central banks move to make large-scale interventions, the situation can be reversed. In 2020, trillions of dollars were injected into the economy, and as a result, Bitcoin rose from below $4,000 to more than $65,000 within a year.

In fact, Bitcoin itself was created as a countermeasure to financial crises. On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto embedded a message into the first Bitcoin block: “The finance minister on the brink of a second bailout.” That was the headline in The London Times at the time. In other words, Bitcoin was born as a direct backlash against unlimited money creation by central banks.

The 2008 crisis sparked the creation of Bitcoin, and the 2020 crisis helped Bitcoin grow into a $1 trillion asset. If Blue Owl is the opening act of a new crisis, this pattern may repeat. However, there will likely be a short-term adjustment phase before that.

At present, Bitcoin is trading around 74.64K. In recent months, it has repeatedly tested the $76,000 resistance, but has not managed to break through. The fact that the funding rate for Bitcoin perpetual contracts on a certain major exchange has remained negative for 46 days indicates that the overall market is building up bearish positions. Historically, conditions like this often precede a sharp rally.

Ultimately, the key will be how far Blue Owl’s crisis spreads. If it truly functions as a “canary” and triggers a further large-scale crisis, the government and central banks should step in with large-scale interventions again. And that could, in one form or another, open the way for a bullish scenario for Bitcoin.