Bitcoin fell below $60,000 on Friday, hitting its lowest level since October 2024 and breaking through the lows reached during the crypto market crash in February of this year. Over the past week, BTC has fallen by nearly 20%, more than halving from its peak of over $126,000 in October 2025.
Multiple pressures occurring simultaneously
The recent factors suppressing Bitcoin are not isolated incidents. The report mentions that Strategy, long considered the largest single buyer of Bitcoin, has turned to a seller, consequently weakening market expectations for continued buying from them.
Meanwhile, US spot Bitcoin ETFs continued to experience outflows. Some investors withdrew from crypto assets and shifted their focus to AI-related stocks, which have recently performed better, thus weakening Bitcoin's marginal funding support.
Interest rate expectations drag down risk assets
High U.S. inflation, coupled with stronger-than-expected jobs data, has prompted markets to reassess the Federal Reserve's policy path. The initial bets on rate cuts are fading, and the market is now pricing in a possible rate hike as the next step.
- Bitcoin briefly fell below $60,000.
- The cumulative decline this week is close to 20%.
- It has fallen by more than 52% from its peak in October 2025.
This shift also impacted a wider range of risk assets. After hitting record highs, US stocks lost momentum, with the Nasdaq falling more than 2% on Friday. Risk appetite declined in tandem, further pressuring crypto assets.
AI security concerns spread
Besides macroeconomic and funding factors, the market is also digesting concerns that AI and quantum computing may expose weaknesses in cryptographic protocols. The report mentioned that the price of privacy coin Zcash plummeted by over 40% overnight after Anthropic's latest Opus 4.8 model helped discover a key vulnerability.
While these events are concentrated on individual tokens, they amplify the market's sensitivity to the security of crypto protocols. When Bitcoin is already in a weak phase, additional risk events are more likely to trigger hedging and profit-taking behavior.
