Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, has officially entered a bear market at the start of this month after falling 22% from its October peak near 126,000 dollars.

After having been up as much as 35% since the start of the year, the latest decline has reduced gains to less than 4% as of Friday.

Selling accelerated this week, with Bitcoin dropping to around 94,700 dollars on Friday—its lowest trading level in nearly six months.

A Bitcoin bear market

Pressure on Bitcoin has intensified as long-term holders appear increasingly willing to close positions and lock in profits after massive gains in recent years.

Jerry O’Shea, Head of Global Markets Insights at Hashdex Asset Management, said: “Bitcoin has come under pressure from long-term holders taking profits, along with uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve policy, liquidity conditions, and other macro factors.”

Bitcoin has failed to mount any meaningful rebound since the sudden October 10 crash triggered when President Donald Trump reignited his trade war with China. According to Peter Chung, head of Presto Research, some buyers and sellers left the market after that episode, reducing order-book depth and making prices more volatile.

Chung wrote in an email: “Bitcoin is under pressure just like other high-risk assets (see AI-stock movements), but the downside has been amplified by a crypto-specific factor—order books have thinned out after the October 10 liquidations, which hurt many market makers.”

The road back — so far

Until a few weeks ago, 2025 had been a relatively strong year for Bitcoin. The token was trading near 69,000 dollars ahead of Trump’s re-election in November, then surged roughly 83% — with volatility — to an all-time high above 126,000 dollars in early October.

Bitcoin crossed 100,000 dollars for the first time in early December 2024 as investors bet that the Trump administration would adopt crypto-friendly regulations.

Trump embraced the crypto sector, eased regulatory scrutiny, and pushed for supportive legislation. Congress passed and Trump signed the “GENIUS Act” in July, marking a new regulatory era for stablecoins.

Trump also appointed crypto-ally Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, while crypto increasingly entered the mainstream with new exchange-traded products offering easier market access.

Bitcoin was trading near 94,000 dollars at the start of the year. It has now erased nearly all of the past 11 months of gains. By comparison, the S&P 500 is up 13.4% this year, and gold prices have surged 53%.

While tech stocks have also come under pressure, investors have been buying dips. Nvidia dropped 3.36% on Friday before closing up 1.77%. On Monday, it fell 3.08% before trimming losses to end down just 1.88%.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, remains stuck around 92,000 dollars with little sign of recovery. Some analysts say the crypto market is at a turning point—positive catalysts have already been fully priced in this year, while uncertainty about the outlook is rising.

“Market behavior over the next few days will determine whether this is a deeper reset or just a sharp, temporary pullback within a still-intact cycle,” said Rafik of OKX.

Some crypto investors remain optimistic. Bitcoin fell to about 74,500 dollars in April before rallying above 126,000 dollars in early October.

Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise Asset Management, said: “Right now, some investors are spooked by the sideways action. But in our view, it’s a perfect opportunity to accumulate Bitcoin or for those on the sidelines to enter the market.”

Key drivers of the decline:

Tech-sector collapse

Bitcoin has been caught in a broader sell-off in high-risk assets, especially tech stocks, which have suffered sharp declines amid concerns about stretched valuations.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw outflows of 866.7 million dollars on Thursday, according to CoinGlass — the largest since early August.

“In some ways, Bitcoin acted as an early risk indicator,” wrote David Nicholas, CEO of XFUNDS, noting recent equity-market valuation concerns. “I think it’s the perfect mix for Bitcoin weakness.”

Antonio G. Giacomo, Senior Market Analyst at XS.com, said in a client note: “The broad decline in tech stocks was a major driver behind the drop in risk appetite.”

Liquidity

Bitcoin liquidity has deteriorated over the past month, which may have contributed to increased price volatility.

Market depth — a measure of how well prices can absorb large trades — fell from around 766 million dollars in early October to 535.2 million dollars this week, according to analytics firm Kaiko.

Rumors around Michael Saylor

Selling intensified Friday after Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy and one of Bitcoin’s most prominent advocates, responded to online rumors alleging that his company had sold part of its Bitcoin holdings.

Arkham Intel estimated that Strategy held about 437,000 Bitcoin on Friday, down from a peak of around 484,000 earlier this month. The company previously said it believes it has identified about 97% of Strategy’s total holdings.

Strategy’s website said it held 641,692 Bitcoin as of Friday. The company did not respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

Strategy is the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, and any sale would be a negative signal for the market, given Saylor’s well-known bullish stance and insistence that the company is a buyer, not a seller.

Another red flag spotted by Bitcoin watchers on social media was the drop in Strategy’s net-asset-value premium, which compares the market value of the company with the value of its Bitcoin holdings. The premium fell below 1x this week, meaning the market assigned no valuation above the worth of its holdings. Strategy’s market cap was about 59 billion dollars Friday, versus 63 billion dollars in Bitcoin.

A separate report from Arkham this week confirmed that Strategy remains the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder.

But Saylor posted on X that he is actually “₿uying” more Bitcoin, sharing an image of himself with the word “HODL.”

He reiterated this in an interview with CNBC on Friday, saying Strategy is accelerating its purchases and will release its next Bitcoin-buying report on Monday.

Commenting on the recent sell-off, Saylor said: “I think volatility comes with the nature of the sector.”

Bitcoin fell below 90,000 dollars on Tuesday for the first time in nearly seven months before recovering slightly, as uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path and caution tied to delayed U.S. economic data reduced demand for high-risk assets.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency was down 2.6% at 92,482 dollars as of 09:40 a.m. Eastern Time (14:40 GMT).

Bitcoin dropped to a 24-hour low of 89,409 dollars, leaving it nearly 30% below its late-October peak above 126,000 dollars.

The decline accelerated after the digital asset failed to hold support around 94,000 dollars, triggering what is known as a “death cross” between short- and long-term moving averages.

The U.S. government reopened last week after the longest shutdown in its history, and analysts say the next round of macro data will be crucial in shaping investor sentiment.

Iliya Katchaev, analyst at Nexo Dispatch, told Investing.com: “If inflation and labor data show further cooling, we may see a short-term rebound; but if not, markets are likely to stay in tight ranges dominated by flows into the weekend.”

Rate-cut doubts spark a wave of risk aversion

Investors have become increasingly doubtful that the Federal Reserve will cut rates in December. Fed officials — including Chair Jerome Powell — have signaled hesitation toward further easing, leaving markets uncertain about the central bank’s next move.

Caution also prevailed due to the lack of fresh data after weeks of delays caused by the recent government shutdown.

This backlog is expected to begin clearing this week, starting with the delayed September nonfarm payrolls report due Thursday.

Additional pressure: slower Bitcoin ETF flows and liquidation waves

Weak inflows into spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds contributed to the sell-off, as institutional investors stepped back amid rising volatility.

Shares of crypto-linked firms and mining companies also fell sharply, intensifying risk aversion across the digital-asset sector.

The decline followed several massive liquidation waves in crypto derivatives markets, where leveraged positions worth billions were wiped out.

Major analytics firms reported that earlier this month, more than 19 billion dollars in positions were liquidated within just 24 hours, triggering forced selling.

Bitcoin last traded below 90,000 dollars in late April. Its return to these levels highlights how quickly investor confidence has deteriorated as markets reassess geopolitical risks and the timing of U.S. rate cuts.

Crypto platforms disrupted after major Cloudflare outage

Cloudflare suffered a major network outage on Tuesday that knocked out front-end services for a broad range of cryptocurrency platforms and major websites. Millions of applications rely on the company’s infrastructure for security, routing, and edge computing.

Among the affected platforms were Coinbase and Kraken, in addition to major non-crypto services such as ChatGPT, Spotify, and X.

Cloudflare acknowledged the issue around 11:48 a.m. UTC on its status page, describing it as “an internal service degradation.” The company later said it had identified the cause and was deploying a fix.

The outage coincided with scheduled maintenance at several of the company’s data centers, though Cloudflare did not confirm any link and provided no further details.

Crypto prices today: broad altcoin declines

Most altcoins posted sharp losses on Friday amid broader risk-off sentiment.

Ethereum — the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency — fell 2.5% to 3,074.07 dollars.

Ripple, the third-largest token, declined 4.4% to 2.18 dollars.

U.S. stock indexes fell at the start of Tuesday’s session as heavy selling resumed in technology shares, particularly companies linked to artificial intelligence.

Later this week, several key U.S. economic releases are expected, most notably the September nonfarm payrolls report due on Thursday.

This comes a day after the release of the Federal Reserve meeting minutes, which reflected the recent decision to cut interest rates.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson called for caution regarding further rate cuts in the coming period.

Jefferson said he agreed with the cut implemented in October and believes current monetary policy is “somewhat restrictive,” suggesting there may be additional room for easing.

In market trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3% (587 points) to 46,024 points as of 15:07 GMT, the S&P 500 dropped 1.1% (74 points) to 6,598 points, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.5% (345 points) to 22,370 points.

Silver prices slid in European trading on Tuesday to their lowest level in a week, extending losses for a fourth consecutive session and falling below the 50-dollar-per-ounce threshold, pressured by the U.S. dollar’s ongoing strength in foreign-exchange markets.

More hawkish commentary from Federal Reserve policymakers has reinforced caution toward further monetary easing in the United States, reducing expectations for a rate cut in December.

Price Overview

Silver fell 1.7% to 49.36 dollars—its lowest in a week—down from the opening level of 50.20 dollars, after touching an intraday high of 50.22 dollars.

At Monday’s settlement, silver lost 0.7%, marking a third straight daily decline under pressure from the stronger U.S. dollar.

U.S. Dollar

The dollar index rose 0.1% on Tuesday, extending gains for a third straight session as the U.S. currency continued to strengthen against major and minor peers.

This performance reflects ongoing demand for the dollar as the preferred investment in FX markets, especially as expectations fade for a December Federal Reserve rate cut.

U.S. Interest Rates

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said Monday that the central bank needs to “proceed slowly” with additional rate cuts.

According to CME’s FedWatch tool, markets currently price a 45% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut in December, with a 55% probability of no change.

Investors are closely monitoring Fed remarks while awaiting delayed U.S. inflation and labor-market data.

Outlook for Silver

At Economies,com, we expect that if upcoming Fed comments turn out more hawkish than markets anticipate, expectations for a December rate cut may decline further, adding additional negative pressure on non-yielding assets—particularly precious metals such as gold and silver.