Bitcoin slipped below the $70,000 mark this week, giving up nearly all of the gains it posted after Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory, as a violent, broad-based sell-off swept through crypto and other risk assets.

After briefly touching levels near $60,000, Bitcoin has recovered modestly to around $69,000. Still, the rebound has done little to ease damage across the broader market, with the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) down more than 17% over the past week.

Altcoins Suffer Deeper Losses

Bitcoin’s roughly 16.5% weeklyseven-day decline pales in comparison with losses across major altcoins. Ether dropped 22.4%, BNB fell 23.4%, and Solana slid 25.2%, underscoring the severity of the rout.

Shares of crypto-linked companies also sank sharply, even as bitcoin briefly reclaimed $70,000 during Friday’s rebound.

‘Sell at Any Price’ Conditions

Market-maker Wintermute described Thursday’s plunge as the worst single-day drawdown in bitcoin since the collapse of FTX. According to Wintermute strategist Jasper De Maere, the move was driven by market-wide liquidations and what felt like “a sell at any price working order.”

Institutional desks reported only “small but manageable” liquidations, De Maere said , a mismatch that has fueled debate about where stress is building in the system.

The sell-off coincided with broader deleveraging across asset classes. The Nasdaq-100 ETF Invesco QQQ Trust fell about 500 basis points over three sessions, while silver and gold traded roughly 38% and 12% below their cycle highs, respectively.

Options Signal Stress, Ether at the Center

Volatility spiked sharply in crypto derivatives. Implied volatility surged into the 99th percentile, with skew shifting toward unusually expensive put options , a sign that traders were scrambling for downside protection.

Ether was “the epicenter of the pain,” De Maere said, as traders rushed to hedge against further declines. In bitcoin options markets, positioning suggested expectations for continued turbulence, with traders bracing for a wide trading range between roughly $55,000 and $75,000.

Negative Headlines Add to Pressure

Sentiment took another hit after one of crypto exchange announced plans to shut down operations in the U.K., European Union and Australia, while cutting about 25% of its workforce. Users in affected regions will be moved to withdrawal-only mode, with asset transfers handled via brokerage platform eToro.

Elsewhere, miner Bitfarms saw its shares rise after abandoning its “bitcoin company” label to focus on artificial-intelligence infrastructure , a pivot some investors viewed as a defensive shift.

Thinner Liquidity, ETF Outflows

Market structure has amplified price swings. According to Kaiko, bitcoin’s average 1% market depth , a measure of how much can be traded near the current price without moving the market , has fallen to around $5 million, down from more than $8 million in 2025. Lower depth tends to make moves sharper and more erratic.

At the same time, flows in spot bitcoin ETFs have turned decisively negative. Data from SoSoValue shows roughly $1.25 billion in net outflows over the past three days. Jim Bianco estimated that the average ETF cost basis sits near $90,000, leaving investors with roughly $15 billion in unrealized losses.

Bianco noted that bitcoin has increasingly traded in tandem with software stocks, which also slumped this week following new AI automation tools from Anthropic. Shares of Salesforce, ["company","Adobe","software company"] and ServiceNow each fell sharply over the week.

Is a Tradable Bottom Forming?

Despite the carnage, some technical analysts see signs of stabilization. Jonathan Krinsky said bitcoin and software stocks may have put in tactical lows, pointing to $60,000 as a key support level.

“To confirm a tradable low, bitcoin really needs to reclaim $73,000,” Krinsky said. “That was the key breakdown level.”

Bigger Picture

The Trump administration’s pro-crypto stance helped propel bitcoin to an all-time high above $125,000 last year before the current correction set in. This week’s sell-off shows how quickly sentiment can reverse when leverage, thin liquidity and negative headlines collide , leaving markets vulnerable to abrupt, disorderly moves even as long-term policy tailwinds remain intact.