Crypto investors endured one of the toughest weeks in years as a wave of selling wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars from digital asset markets.
Bitcoin fell 17.3% this week, and Ether dropped 22%, putting both on track for their largest weekly declines since November 2022, when the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange triggered a market-wide panic. Total market capitalization shed roughly $390 billion, falling to just over $2 trillion.
Roughly $7 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated across digital assets, with $5.7 billion of those being bullish long positions.
The selloff came as several bearish forces converged. Strategy disclosed it sold bitcoin for the first time in nearly four years, rattling investors. Bitcoin ETFs continued to bleed assets as capital rotated into AI investments, with opportunities from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic raising the opportunity cost of holding crypto. The final blow came from a stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report, fueling fears the Federal Reserve could raise rates if inflation remains stubborn.