Bitcoin tumbled below the $70,000 threshold for the first time since November 2024 on Thursday before rebounding slightly, as a wave of liquidations and waning institutional interest weighed on the cryptocurrency amid broader risk-asset sell-offs.
The digital token fell to as low as $69,999 around 6:27 am ET, later climbing to $70,453.68 by 6:40 am ET, marking a roughly 40-percent retreat from its October peak above $126,000, according to market data.
The slump follows over $2 billion in liquidations of long and short positions this week, with Bitcoin breaching its 365-day moving average for the first time since March 2022, triggering a 23-percent drop over 83 days—exceeding the severity of early 2022 declines.
Analysts at CryptoQuant pointed to reversed institutional flows, noting U.S. exchange-traded funds shifted from net buyers of 46,000 Bitcoin last year to net sellers in 2026, forecasting potential further slides toward the $70,000–$60,000 range.
Maja Vujinovic, CEO of digital assets at FG Nexus, attributed the slowdown to evolving market dynamics, telling CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange”: “[The] straight line bull run that a lot of people expected hasn’t really materialized yet. Bitcoin isn’t trading on hype anymore, the story has lost a bit of that plot, it is trading on pure liquidity and capital flows.”
