- Bitcoin fell below its 2021 high, erasing most post-bear market gains
- Leverage and ETF outflows accelerated losses across crypto assets
- Pressure spread beyond crypto into equities and precious metals
Bitcoin extended its selloff on Thursday, sliding to around $67,000 and decisively breaking below its 2021 all-time high near $69,000. That move wiped out nearly all of the gains built since the bear market bottom in November 2022. What made the drop sting wasn’t just the price level, but how quickly it unraveled years of progress.
The weakness wasn’t isolated. Ethereum fell below $2,000, Solana dropped to roughly $84, and XRP slid to about $1.29. In just 24 hours, the total crypto market capitalization fell more than 7%, shrinking to around $2.3 trillion. This wasn’t a rotation. It was a reset.
Leverage Turns a Pullback Into a Flush
Heavy leverage amplified the move lower. Roughly $480 million in crypto positions were liquidated in a single hour, with total liquidations topping $1.4 billion over the past 24 hours. Once key levels gave way, forced selling took over, pushing prices faster than spot demand could absorb.
ETF flows added more pressure. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded more than $800 million in net outflows over the past two days, while Ethereum ETFs saw about $68 million leave this week. As prices broke down, institutional positioning shifted from passive holding to active risk reduction.
Treasury Giants Feel the Pain
Strategy, the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, is now facing an unrealized loss exceeding $6.7 billion on its roughly 713,000 BTC position. The stock dropped another 13% on Thursday, trading near $112 and approaching levels last seen in August 2024. With earnings scheduled later today, pressure on the equity is building fast.
Ethereum-focused treasuries are under similar strain. BitMine, the largest corporate holder of ETH, is sitting on nearly $8 billion in unrealized losses as Ethereum continues to weaken. These positions were designed to absorb volatility, but the scale of the move is testing confidence.
Risk-Off Spreads Beyond Crypto
The selloff didn’t stop at digital assets. Traditional markets followed crypto lower, with the S&P 500 falling about 1.2% and the Nasdaq dropping roughly 1.8%. Even traditional hedges failed to offer shelter. Silver plunged around 15%, while gold fell roughly 5% in a sharp and unusual overnight move.
Taken together, the week’s action marks one of the most aggressive cross-asset resets since late 2022. Correlations tightened, liquidity thinned, and risk was pulled across the board rather than rotated.
This Feels Less Like Panic and More Like Repricing
What stands out isn’t just the size of the drop, but the breadth of it. Crypto, equities, and metals all moved together, suggesting a repricing of risk rather than a single-sector collapse. Bitcoin breaking below its prior cycle high carries symbolic weight, but the deeper signal is how quickly leverage and passive capital exited.
Whether this turns into a base or another leg lower will depend on how markets rebuild trust at these levels. For now, the message is simple. When everything resets at once, narratives pause, and price takes control.
