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The price of bitcoin continued its months-long slide on Thursday, falling another 11% to $67,000, and is now worth less than it was when President Donald Trump was elected to his second term.
The original cryptocurrency, billed as “digital gold,” has lost nearly half its value since Oct. 6, when it hit an all-time high of $126,210.50, according to crypto trading platform Coinbase. As of 2:00 PM ET, the coin was trading at $66,301.
After the elections of trump in November 2024, Bitcoin prices rose for most of the year, partly due to investor expectations of a more crypto-friendly administration in Washington. But those gains have now been wiped out.
The sell-off appears to be a combination of investors pulling back from speculative assets like gold, silver and digital currencies, as well as concern over the future of cryptocurrency regulation in Washington, despite Trump’s strong support for cryptocurrency companies since his election.
The White House hosted banks and cryptocurrency companies at an event this week to see if there could be common ground on pending legislation to regulate stablecoins.
The cryptocurrency industry wants to be able to pay customers to keep their deposits in cryptocurrencies or stablecoins, a move that the banking industry would absolutely oppose. Banks believe that cryptocurrency accounts that provide a dividend or yield would take money out of the traditional banking system. It currently appears that the bill will not advance in Congress.
A popular way to invest in bitcoin is through spot bitcoin ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, which allow investors to hold a stake in bitcoin without directly owning the cryptocurrency. Investors pulled about $5.7 billion out of bitcoin ETFs from November to January, according to data from Morningstar Direct.
Companies that allow investors to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, as well as the growing number of companies that have made investing in bitcoin their main business focus, have also been hit hard by the recent selloff. Coinbase Global fell 9.1% and online trading platform Robinhood Markets lost 8.1%. Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms fell 10%.
Strategy, the biggest of the so-called crypto treasury companies which raise money just to buy bitcoins, fell 13%. The company, formerly known as MicroStrategy, reports on its website 713,502 bitcoins. With the average purchase price for those over $76,000, it means the company is underwater on the investment. As of Thursday morning, its bitcoin holdings were worth about $47.8 billion, less than the $54.3 billion Strategy says they are worth.
