Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Bitcoin sank below $70,000 on Thursday for the first time since November 2024, wiping out all of the gains it has made since Donald Trump was elected to his second term as US president.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency dropped almost 5 per cent to $69,287 as digital tokens were swept up in a sell-off in tech stocks, taking its losses for the year to more than 20 per cent.
“Sentiment . . . has deteriorated sharply, echoing capitulation vibes in the face of a deteriorating crypto narrative and weak demand,” said Jasper De Maere, a strategist at trading firm Wintermute. “The crypto market still feels tired as we see little appetite from anyone to step in convincingly at these levels.”
Bitcoin had rallied after Trump’s election victory, buoyed by his vow to make the US “the crypto capital of the world” and roll back a regulatory crackdown on the crypto industry. Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has helped pass industry-friendly legislation while regulators lifted enforcement actions against some companies, driving Bitcoin’s price to a record high last summer of more than $125,000.
But since then, it has retreated as the wave of enthusiasm sparked by Trump began to wane and investors instead turned to precious metals as a long-term store of value, driving a record-breaking rally in gold and silver. Key legislation governing the crypto industry in the US has also stalled this year.
The declines gathered pace this week amid an equity sell-off sparked by investors’ worries over the impact of AI on tech companies.
On prediction market platform Kalshi, traders began making bets last month on how low the price of bitcoin would fall this year. It shows a roughly 75 per cent chance that the price will fall below $60,000.