Bitcoin’s deep losses accelerated Thursday as the cryptocurrency fell 13% to plummet below the $65,000 mark as of mid-afternoon, continuing a historically bad stretch for the world’s most valuable digital asset.
Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin fell below the $70,000 mark for the first time in over a year around 6:30 a.m. EST, but losses worsened throughout the day.
- The losses pushed bitcoin below the $65,000 figure shortly after 3 p.m. EST, and it was trading as low as around $62,500 shortly before 4 p.m. EST.
- These prices have not been recorded for the cryptocurrency since October 2024.
- Bitcoin has fallen nearly 50% from its all-time high of $126,080, which was reached just under four months ago, on Oct. 6, 2025.
Why Is Bitcoin Falling?
Bitcoin prices began faltering in mid-January amid geopolitical instability informed by the U.S.’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and President Donald Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland. Investors scrambled for assets with more security, sending gold and silver prices surging to historic highs. Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh for chair of the Federal Reserve has also contributed to the bitcoin falloff, according to experts, despite Warsh’s positive view on the cryptocurrency. Deutsche Bank analysts Marion Laboure and Camilla Siazon attributed the slide to “massive withdrawals from institutional ETFs,” which are collections of diversified assets that can be invested and sold quickly on a stock exchange. The bitcoin tumble also comes amid a tech stock sell-off, which has sent the Nasdaq down 4.8% in the last week of trading.
Tangent
Trading platforms, the performance of which are largely linked to the state of cryptocurrency, also felt the pain alongside bitcoin on Thursday. Robinhood shares fell 9% shortly before 3 p.m. EST and are now down 36% on the year. Coinbase shares, which started the year around the $236 mark, fell to $150.40 at 2:55 p.m. EST.
Key Background
While the ongoing crash worsens, bitcoin finds itself in a familiar stint of volatility seen in years past. The cryptocurrency reached a then-high near $69,000 in November 2021 and, over the course of the next year, tanked around 78% to below $16,000. Bitcoin surged in 2025 following the election of Trump, who ran on a pro-crypto platform the year prior. Trump established a government bitcoin reserve in March and pulled back on cryptocurrency enforcement. Bitcoin’s fall comes as Trump has championed an aggressive foreign policy backed by sweeping tariffs and the threat of military intervention in countries like Colombia and Greenland. The Trump administration has a framework agreement on Greenland, but it is not clear whether that involves ownership the president is seeking, which has threatened to break decades-long agreements the U.S. has with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
