Canuc Resources Co. (CVE:CDA – Get Free Report)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as C$0.15 and last traded at C$0.14, with a volume of 52139 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$0.14. Canuc Resources Trading Down 11.1% The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of [...]
$60,000 is the key “fault line” for Bitcoin: a sustained break below it could quickly escalate volatility rather than produce a normal correction.
WITH the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences being awarded to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction”, the idea that only a constant process of innovation and disruption can inject dynamism in an economy, a new mantra has gripped Pakistan’s policy elite and commentariat. This follows the official pressing of the panic button on the economy by none other than the incumbent prime minister, in a brutal violation of the narrative spun by the Ministry of Finance.An elite panel was constituted, and furthering earlier work, it concluded in essence that “creative destruction” will be the silver bullet that will save the economy from its current nosedive. To achieve this will require reform of the import tariff regime, which will ultimately force inefficient firms to either ‘swim or sink’.The elegant prescription applied to Pakistan, unfortunately, stems from a complete misdiagnosis — and a dangerous one at that. It is yet another example of transplanting ideas without a country-specific context or a nuanced understanding of initial conditions.At the core of the elite policy recommendations is the implicit assumption that the inefficiency and lack of competitiveness in the economy are all endogenous to firms — that is, internal to the way firms choose to operate, inherent in their business decisions, and independent of external factors. The assumption is that firms have agency over their environment, or that the environment in which they operate is neutral and does not exert any negative influence.This is obviously a heroic assumption in the case of Pakistan. And completely off the mark. Formal sector firms in the country operate under the following dizzying set of constraints: the most expensive electricity in the region (with frequent interruptions); the highest tax burden (up to 50 per cent plus with the super tax); an over-valued exchange rate; widespread smuggling and under-invoicing that produces a $68 billion supposedly underground (but very much above-ground) parallel economy that undercuts the formal economy; executive overreach and regulatory burden; cost of corruption and bribes; non-availability of a skilled workforce; training costs for an unskilled and semi-skilled labour force, the product of chronic under-investment by the state; paying for water, security, extortion by local criminal gangs, forced hiring of political appointees, and dealing with frequent policy reversals. This set of constraints is not even exhaustive.The country’s policy elite has discovered the Holy Grail. Too bad they are holding the wrong end.The net effect is that, according to calculations by the Pakistan Business Forum, the cost of doing business is 34pc more expensive in Pakistan than in regional peers. As a consequence, formal sector firms, including supposedly ‘protected’ ones operating behind high tariff barriers, have been exiting in droves and Pakistan is experiencing a silent economic scarring (or hysteresis), with the real possibility of permanent de-industrialisation.Many of the missing essential elements are public goods on paper. The complete absence of basic building blocks of a thriving business environment — policy stability, law and order, a healthy and productive labour force, affordable and available electricity, gas and water, protection from executive overreach, including from predatory taxation, arbitrary and discriminatory treatment and risk of appropriation, predictable contract enforcement, copyright protection, recourse to independent courts — is entirely ignored in the policy recommendations. None of the above inefficiencies are endogenous to firms. And each of these is a necessary condition for a successfully functioning market economy. Virtually all the constraints facing businesses represent a catastrophic system failure, of environment design, not of individual firms. While firm productivity in Pakistan is low by any measure, and does need to improve ultimately through less protection and more competition, the proximate cause of the abysmally low overall national competitiveness is the myriad negative externalities produced by a malfunctioning and extractive political system. Exhibit A in this regard is the political corruption in IPP contracts that has led to the power crisis.Imposing the costs of failure of the state onto firms is a bad idea and will not bring about the desired results. A simple thought experiment should make this clear. If we assume the process of creative destruction runs its course, and many ‘inefficient’ firms are forced to exit, which new firms will replace them under the existing constraints listed earlier? Is it realistic to imagine new investment from the private sector under conditions of the highest regional electricity tariffs or predatory taxation or policy inconsistency? Instead, we will most likely end up attracting shadowy crypto firms and chasing government-to-government deals with sovereign guaranteed rates of return, while the rest of the industrial base dissolves into non-existence.An economic system is perforce a product of the political system. The political system is higher in the hierarchy than all the other sub-systems; hence, any malfunction there affects all the constituent sub-systems. The degenerating economic order cannot be viewed in isolation from the political economy. It is a function of the political order, kept in place to support the extraction and rent-seeking. The two go hand in hand. As I have argued previously, for this reason, the economy cannot be fixed without fixing the politics first — and the sequencing is important. Politics first, economy to follow. Any entity, be it an elite institution or an elite panel of experts, talking about “deep” economic reform while ignoring or implicitly ruling out reforming the corrupt and misgoverning political order is fooling itself and us. The bottom line is that economic reform requires political reform.Genuine fresh investment that brings about innovation and efficiency, and improves the country’s overall competitiveness, will remain a pipe dream until the extractive, rent-seeking political order that shapes and produces the underlying current economic order is cast aside.Stefan Kanfer writing in Time magazine in the 1980s had a famous paraphrase of a Kafka autobiographical thought: “there is only one illness, and medicine hunts it blindly like a beast through unending forests.” In Kafka’s case, the malady was life itself. In our case, it is our political order and system of mis-governance. Pakistan desperately needs creative destruction — but not just the kind being advocated.The writer has been a member of several past economic advisory councils under different prime ministers.Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2026
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Bitcoin faces a critical juncture around the $60,000 mark. A break below this level could ignite significant market volatility. Options contracts and Bitcoin-backed loans are positioned to amplify downward pressure. Analysts warn of potential forced selling and cascading liquidations. This scenario could lead to a sharp price correction. Investors are closely watching this key price point for future movements.
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As Bitcoin (BTC) trades roughly 50% below its all‐time high, investors are once again asking the familiar question: how long does recovery usually take? Market analyst Sam Daodu believes history offers valuable clues. No Systemic Bitcoin Collapse This Time? Daodu notes that steep corrections are not unusual for Bitcoin. Since 2011, the cryptocurrency has endured more than 20 pullbacks exceeding 40%. Mid‐cycle declines in the 35% to 50% range have often cooled overheated rallies without permanently derailing long‐term uptrends. In situations where there was no systemic breakdown in the broader market, Bitcoin has typically reclaimed prior highs in about 14 months. He contrasts the current environment with 2022, when multiple structural failures shook the crypto industry. Related Reading: Trump Media Files For Cronos, Bitcoin‐Ether ETFs With Staking Focus At present, there is no comparable collapse rippling through the system. The analyst highlighted that BTC’s realized price—currently near $55,000—may provide a psychological and technical floor, as long‐term holders have historically accumulated coins around that level. Whether the present downturn evolves into a drawn‐out slump or a shorter reset, Daodu suggests, will largely hinge on global liquidity conditions and investor sentiment. A Look Back At Historic Selloffs During the 2021–2022 cycle, Bitcoin peaked at $69,000 in November 2021 before tumbling to $15,500 one year later, a 77% drop. The downturn coincided with monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve, alongside the collapse of the Terra (Luna) ecosystem and FTX’s bankruptcy. It ultimately took 28 months for Bitcoin to surpass its previous high, which it did in March 2024. At the market bottom, long‐term holders controlled roughly 60% of circulating supply, absorbing coins from forced sellers. The 2020 COVID‐19 crash unfolded very differently. In March of that year, Bitcoin plunged about 58%, sliding from approximately $9,100 to $3,800 as global lockdowns triggered a liquidity shock. Bitcoin rebounded quickly. It reclaimed the $10,000 level within six weeks and retook its 2017 high of $20,000 by December 2020, about nine months after the bottom. The eventual surge to $69,000 in November 2021 came roughly 21 months after the crash. The 2018 bear market presents yet another contrast. After reaching $20,000 in December 2017, Bitcoin collapsed 84% to $3,200 by December 2018. The implosion of the initial coin offering (ICO) boom, combined with regulatory crackdowns and limited institutional participation, drained speculative energy from the market. Active addresses declined by 70%, and miners were forced to capitulate as revenues shrank. Without significant new capital or a compelling growth narrative, Bitcoin required nearly three years to revisit its previous peak. Not Capitulation Yet The depth of the drawdown itself plays a critical role. Historically, corrections in the 40% to 50% range have taken roughly nine to 14 months to reverse, while collapses exceeding 80% have required three years or longer. Related Reading: Standard Chartered Lowers Bitcoin Forecast: Predicts Price Dive To $50,000 Before Rebound With Bitcoin now down about 50% from its peak, the decline falls into what Daodu describes as a moderate‐to‐severe category—substantial, but not indicative of full capitulation. Based on prior episodes of similar magnitude, he estimates that a return to previous highs could take 12 months or more, with macroeconomic conditions ultimately determining the speed of that rebound. As of writing, BTC was trading at $68,960, having recovered slightly on Friday with a 5% increase in an attempt to surpass its short-term resistance wall at $70,000. Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com