Bitcoin has fallen 36% over the past year and slipped below $70,000 this week, extending a retreat that is undermining several of the arguments that helped carry the cryptocurrency into the financial mainstream. The decline comes as investors pull money from Bitcoin ETFs, geopolitical tensions drive demand for traditional havens and inflation concerns re-emerge. Yet rather than benefiting from those pressures, Bitcoin has trended lower, leaving some of its most prominent investment claims looking increasingly strained. Few of those claims have been tested more often than Bitcoin’s role as an inflation hedge. As a ... (full story)