Bitcoin and Ether head for steepest weekly drop since FTX era as crypto market sheds $390 billion
Bitcoin slid 17.3% this week and Ether fell 22%, putting both on track for their sharpest weekly declines since November 2022, according to CoinDesk. TradingView data show the broader digital-asset market erased about $390 billion in value over the period, leaving total market capitalization just above $2 trillion—less than half the roughly $4.2 trillion peak reached in October.
Selling pressure also triggered heavy liquidations. CoinGlass estimates roughly $7 billion in leveraged crypto positions were wiped out this week, with the most intense moves on Monday and Friday. About $5.7 billion of the liquidations were from long positions.
Several negative catalysts converged. Early in the week, Strategy disclosed its first Bitcoin sale in nearly four years, offloading 32 BTC worth about $2.5 million. The move rattled investors who had viewed Michael Saylor's firm as a steady source of demand and raised questions about whether additional Bitcoin sales could be needed to service debt linked to its expanding preferred-share financing.
Bitcoin ETF assets under management also continued to decline. Vetle Lunde, head of K33 Research, said some outflows appear tied to a broader shift of capital from crypto into AI-focused investments. Worries that AI tools could expose weaknesses in crypto protocols added to the pressure.
Zcash (ZEC), one of the year's early standouts, dropped more than 40% after researchers found a critical flaw in its privacy system using Anthropic's latest AI model.
The week's final jolt came Friday after a stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report pushed investors to reassess the Federal Reserve's next steps. Rate cuts that markets expected earlier in the year are now giving way to rising odds of hikes if inflation stays elevated. U.S. Treasury yields jumped, and the Nasdaq 100 logged its worst one-day decline since the tariff-driven selloff in April 2025, snapping a record run that had underpinned much of this year's optimism on Wall Street.
