Bitcoin Tumbles Below $60,000 for First Time Since 2024 in Broad-Based Crypto Rout

The price of bitcoin fell below the $60,000 threshold on Friday, plumbing depths not seen since October 2024 and effectively erasing the entire rally triggered by Donald Trump’s re-election. The world’s largest cryptocurrency touched an intraday low of $59,770, a decline of roughly 6 per cent in 24 hours, before paring some losses. The drop extends a brutal week in which the token shed more than 16 per cent, deepening a rout that has erased over $2 trillion in market value across the crypto universe since last autumn’s peak.

Behind the sell-off lies a confluence of forces. Most prominent is a record exodus of institutional capital from US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have suffered 13 consecutive days of net outflows totalling between $2.8 billion and $4.3 billion, depending on estimates. Viewed from New York, the shift signals a profound loss of appetite among professional investors who had piled in after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the vehicles. Adding fuel to the fire, Strategy—the software firm turned bitcoin accumulator formerly known as MicroStrategy—disclosed that it had sold 32 bitcoins for $2.5 million, its first such sale since December 2022. Long-term holders, too, liquidated some $2.4 billion in holdings, many of them bought near the top. From Moscow, analysts point to unexpectedly robust US employment data released Friday, which tempered expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts and sapped risk appetite across global markets. Meanwhile, London traders noted the drag from heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

The contagion swept through the entire digital-asset complex. Ethereum shed 21 per cent over the week, while Solana and Dogecoin fell by comparable margins. The aggregate market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies has more than halved from its apex of roughly $2.5 trillion last year, when Trump’s pro-crypto stance and promises of a strategic bitcoin reserve sent prices soaring past $100,000 and, by some accounts, to an all-time high of $126,000. That euphoria has now fully evaporated, with bitcoin trading below levels seen on election day.

Regional commentary highlights the global nature of the retreat. Arabic-language business pages described a “collapse in demand” for digital currencies amid broader risk-off sentiment. Latin American analysts lamented the “dismantling of derivatives” positions that had propped up prices. Yet some long-term observers remain sanguine. “The market will recover once the macro uncertainty clears,” a São Paulo-based strategist noted, echoing a view common in Buenos Aires and Singapore that the current shakeout may purge speculative excess and lay the foundation for the next cycle.