Bitcoin has slipped toward $60,000, a level it last traded at in 2024, deepening one of the sharpest drawdowns of its institutional era. The token opened June 24 at its lowest in about two weeks, changing hands near $62,650 after dipping below $60,000 earlier in the month. Against an all-time high of about $122,000 reached in October 2025, that marks a decline of more than 50%.
A drawdown is the percentage drop from a peak to a later low; here it measures how far bitcoin has fallen from its record. The slide has unwound months of gains in a matter of weeks.
What is driving the sell-off
The most concrete pressure has come from ETF outflows — money leaving the spot exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin on investors' behalf. When holders redeem ETF shares, the funds sell underlying bitcoin, adding to downward pressure. Spot bitcoin ETFs ran a record multi-week outflow streak that pulled billions from the funds — the largest since they launched in January 2024 — before the streak broke in early June.
Macro forces compounded the technical selling. A more hawkish Fed under new chair Kevin Warsh has removed a pillar of demand, while a firm dollar at a 13-month high and sticky inflation have unwound the "debasement trade" that earlier lifted gold, silver and crypto together — a reversal Boursel has tracked. At the same time, capital has rotated toward AI stocks and new listings.
Sentiment also took a hit from Strategy, Michael Saylor's bitcoin-heavy firm, which made its first bitcoin sale in years this month — a small disposal Boursel covered as the company's once-large premium to its coins flipped to a discount. Ether has slid alongside bitcoin, with its own spot ETFs logging a record outflow streak.
Differing views on what comes next
Analysts disagree on the path ahead, and the following are attributed scenarios, not forecasts. The research firm 21Shares argues the bitcoin four-year cycle — the pattern, tied to bitcoin's roughly four-yearly supply "halving," in which prices have historically boomed and then corrected — is not broken but has evolved. The firm notes the current drawdown is far milder than the 80%-plus bear markets of past cycles and that bitcoin has held above an aggregate investor cost basis near $54,000.
Others see more downside: Markus Thielen of 10x Research has pointed to a possible move toward $55,000 before any bottom. Some traders expect a relief bounce instead, noting bitcoin had already rebounded sharply off its early-June low. None of these outcomes is assured, and nothing here is investment advice.
