Bitcoin's latest slide is pushing more investors to question whether it still deserves its "digital gold" reputation. The cryptocurrency dropped below $70,000 on Thursday, touching $69,055—its first dip under that level since November 2024 and extending a three-month downturn that has left it more than 45% beneath its early-October peak above $126,000, CNBC reports. Deutsche Bank analyst Marion Laboure wrote this week that the persistent selling suggests "traditional investors are losing interest, and overall pessimism about crypto is growing."
Bitcoin's recent behavior has undercut some of its biggest selling points. Rather than acting as a haven from market and geopolitical turbulence, it has mostly moved in tandem with risk assets such as tech stocks, including during recent flare-ups in Venezuela, the Middle East, and Europe. Its use in everyday payments remains limited, and over the past year it has badly trailed gold, which is up about 69% while bitcoin is down roughly 29%. Other major tokens are also sliding: Ether is off about 23% this week and Solana has hit a two-year low after a 24% weekly drop. Analysts say large institutional investors credited with keeping the price of bitcoin high are now ditching their holdings.
The mood in crypto markets is very different from a year ago, when President Trump returned to office and promised to make America a "bitcoin superpower," the Wall Street Journal reports. Instead, AI investments hogged the spotlight and much of investors' capital. Real-estate broker Will Warden, 44, tells the Journal that he decided to jump into the crypto market early last year. "My expectations were that by late spring, summer of 2025, I would have had a huge return," he says. "But that didn't happen." He is keeping his holdings for now, but his father and brother have sold off their stakes. "A lot of people are exhausted, or irritated, or angry," Warden says.
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