Bitcoin fell below $60,000 on Friday, breaking the lows of the crypto crash in early February and hitting its weakest level since October 2024.
The largest cryptocurrency has fallen nearly 20% in the past week and has now lost more than 52% since its peak in October above $126,000.
Several headwinds have recently converged over bitcoin — the most important being the strategy of its biggest single buyer, Michael Saylor, turned seller. In addition, spot bitcoin ETFs suffered sustained outflows as investors pulled capital from the sector and instead allocated it to the red-hot trade in artificial intelligence and related stocks.
Persistently elevated inflation and a warm labor market report on Friday also prompted investors to reconsider US monetary policy. Markets that expected rate cuts earlier this year have now fully priced in the Federal Reserve’s next move as a rate hike.
With that, US stocks have lost momentum after a strong run to record highs, weighing on risk appetite across markets. The Nasdaq is more than 2% lower Friday.
Crypto investors have also grappled with renewed concerns about whether artificial intelligence and quantum computing could reveal weaknesses in crypto protocols. Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) fell more than 40% overnight after a critical vulnerability was discovered using Anthropic’s latest Opus 4.8 AI model.
