Crypto markets came under pressure this week when the price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year.
On Thursday afternoon, the price of Bitcoin fell below $66,000 and was hovering at about $62,900 on Friday morning.
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The fall in the price of the digital asset kicked off in the last weekend of January, when it fell below $80,000.
In October last year, Bitcoin hit an all-time peak of more than $127,000 before falling back to about $90,000 in December.
Following its latest tumble, Bitcoin is currently down by about 30 percent more since the start of the year.
Here’s what we know about what’s going on in the world of cryptocurrency:
Why is the price of Bitcoin falling?
Volatility in other markets is one of the main drivers.
Analysts say a sell-off of global stocks amid geopolitical uncertainty and recent volatility in the price of gold and silver are part of the reason for the drastic fall in the price of Bitcoin.
“Institutional demand has reversed materially,” CryptoQuant, an organisation which provides analysis of global markets to cryptocurrency investors, wrote in a report on Wednesday.
The report noted that US exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – a form of pooled investment – which had been buying up Bitcoin last year, are selling it this year.
Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note to clients this week that these ETFs “have seen billions of dollars flow out each month since the October 2025 downturn”, referring to investors in the funds cashing out of them.
Furthermore, they added that specialised US spot Bitcoin ETFs suffered outflows of more than $3bn in January this year, following outflows of about $7bn and $2bn in November and December 2025, respectively.
“This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing interest, and overall pessimism about crypto is growing,” the analysts said.
Adam Morgan McCarthy, product specialist at Kaiko, an organisation that provides crypto market data and analyses, told Al Jazeera: “The fall in Bitcoin prices has been largely tied to less interest in the markets and lower trading volumes. This leads to less liquidity, so any move higher or lower is exacerbated.”
He explained that the crypto market relies heavily on “hype-driven” cycles where people buy due to a fear of “missing out” on an opportunity.
“This hype forms the foundation of trading volumes, and that is what we mean by liquidity. Essentially, more trading volumes mean more liquidity, as it makes it easier to quickly buy and sell Bitcoin,” he said.
“Right now, that foundation is disappearing and this tends to happen during bear markets or ‘crypto winters’, making it much harder to effectively trade assets, and they become even less appealing then. So it’s quite a vicious circle that leads to these downward spirals,” he added.
A “crypto winter” is an extended period of declining or…
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