Bitcoin tumbled below $70,000 as the unwinding of leveraged bets and broader market turbulence deepened a selloff that has wiped out all of the gains since President Donald Trump’s election set off a speculative rush into cryptocurrencies. The token fell as much as 8.6% Thursday to $66,364, the lowest since October 2024, before steading around $67,000 by the middle of the trading day in New York. The rout has erased nearly half of Bitcoin’s value since it reached a record four months ago and has spread to other tokens, related ETFs and companies like Strategy Inc. that hold vast sums of coins. Bitcoin trades below $70,000 for the first time since November of 2024. A selloff has wiped out all of Bitcoin’s gains since the election of President Donald Trump. Bloomberg’s Muyao Shen reports. The downturn has marked an abrupt retreat from Bitcoin’s meteoric rise through much of last year, when the return of the crypto-friendly Republican to the White House sent investors piling into such tokens and the Wall Street vehicles that have sprouted up around them. The market started cracking this month as rising geopolitical tensions sent tremors across global financial markets and curbed risk taking. That sparked Bitcoin’s precipitous decline from mid-January and set off a self-reinforcing cycle of selling as funds liquidated assets to meet redemptions and unwind leveraged bets.

“The fear and uncertainty across the market is evident,” said Chris Newhouse, head of business development at Ergonia. “Without conviction-based buyers willing to lean into the selling, each wave of ETF redemptions and liquidation cascades.” He said that’s “amplifying the magnitude of each leg lower and reinforcing the defensive positioning that’s keeping organic demand on the sidelines.”

The slide has echoes of the one in 2022, when prices retreated sharply from the surge seen during the easy-money era of the pandemic as the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy. It has already taken a toll on intermediaries like the exchanges Coinbase Global Inc., whose shares have tumbled more than 30% this year, and Gemini Space Station Inc., which said it plans to cut up to 25% of its workforce and wind down operations in the UK, European Union and Australia. This time, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also seeing competition from other forms of speculation, like legalized sport gambling and prediction-market wagering on everything from politics to entertainment. At the same time, retail flow continues to chase zero-day options in equities and higher-yield crypto plays across decentralized exchanges. The latest drop comes as digital assets face continued doubts about their real-world use, as well. Once touted as an inflation hedge or a rival to gold or the US dollar as a stable store of value, Bitcoin has continued to trade more like a high-risk asset and has failed to serve as a haven during times of financial market stress. In fact, its growing presence in institutional portfolios has at times made it more vulnerable to broad de-risking, particularly during bouts of volatility in tech equities and precious metals, like what has been seen in recent weeks.

“Despite prayers to the other side, crypto-market sentiment continues to hit new lows as the space is a crisis of narrative,” said Augustine Fan, partner at Hong Kong-based crypto options platform SignalPlus.

Inflows into US spot-Bitcoin ETFs had acted as a leg of support for much of 2025 as tens of billions of dollars flowed into the products and helped buoy the token’s price. But those flows have reversed as prices have plummeted — and about $2 billion has come out of Bitcoin ETFs over the past month alone, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The figure is even starker when looked at over the past three months, with more than $5 billion yanked out. The meltdown of the largest cryptocurrency has rippled through the digital-asset world, with smaller, less liquid speculative tokens down even more. The MarketVector Digital Assets 100 Small-Cap Index, which tracks the 50 smallest digital assets in a basket of 100, has plummeted around 70% over the past year. Traders have become increasingly defensive in the options market, with a surge in demand for downside protection around $70,000. Medium-term contracts such as those expiring in late June are pointing to an even more bearish outlook on token prices with the most open interest clustered around $60,000 and $20,000, according to Deribit. Ilan Solot, senior global markets strategist at Marex, said the recent selloff has been fueled by several factors, including the downturn in some tech stocks, the outperformance of gold, the broader risk-off sentiment and general questions about the framework for evaluating the value of cryptocurrencies. “The outlook is probably still bearish for now, but the worst might be behind us,” he said. “Still, these types of moves have historically always been buying opportunities for multi-year investors and many will see it that way.”

NN:  DEAD MEAT

A US F-35C warplane shot down the drone in self-defense as the unmanned aircraft “aggressively approached” the USS Abraham Lincoln with “unclear intent,” US Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday. No American service members were harmed during the incident, and no US equipment was damaged, CentCom said. Oil prices spiked to a session-high on the report as investors weighed the risk of a broader escalation in the Middle East, which provides about a third of the world’s crude. The move came just hours after an oil tanker that’s part of a US-military fuel procurement program was hailed by small armed ships in the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast, underscoring renewed risks to maritime traffic in the region. The drone incident comes after numerous threats from President Donald Trump about striking Iran over the suppression of recent protests there. It interrupts a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent days after Trump on Monday signaled there could be a new Iran nuclear deal, while warning that “bad things would happen” if talks don’t yield anything. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said the Islamic Republic is ready for diplomacy but urged restraint in “threats, intimidation or pressure” from the US. The White House declined to comment on the US shooting down the Iranian drone and referred questions to the Defense Department. “Continued Iranian harassment and threats in international waters and airspace will not be tolerated,” US Central Command said in its statement. “Iran’s unnecessary aggression near US forces, regional partners and commercial vessels increases risks of collision, miscalculation, and regional destabilization.”

The drop marks one of the sharpest single-day declines for Chinese mutual funds. The adjustment came as silver futures on the Comex tumbled 32.7% in the prior two sessions as a frenzied rally, partly fueled by Chinese speculators, ground to a halt. It has also sparked an outcry on social media. Any investor who tried to redeem the funds late Monday would incur an extra loss with the revaluation.

UBS SDIC said the recent market upheaval, with global futures price declines far exceeding the 17% limit, meant the fund’s net asset value can’t fully and timely reflect the fair value in its underlying assets under the previous model, according to a statement on its public WeChat account. It will resume referencing the silver settlement prices in Shanghai for valuation once the underlying futures contracts “reflect the characteristics of active trading markets.” Unadjusted valuation would allow investors that redeem at an earlier time to exit at an inflated net asset value, and expose remaining investors to the risk of asset prices returning to their true value, which the firm said is “obviously against the principle of fairness.” After precious metals from gold to silver unraveled last week the Shanghai Futures Exchange on Monday urged member institutions to beef up risk management and to remind investors to participate rationally.

NN: The loses have not been calculated never mind disclosed… yet. Sell the dippers rally. I’ll be publishing on this during todays trade day