Bitcoin (COIN:BTCUSD) hovered near its weakest levels since April on Monday, after a steep weekend sell-off dragged prices toward the $75,000 area. Heavy unwinding of leveraged trades and rising macro uncertainty continued to weigh on market sentiment.
The largest cryptocurrency was last down 2.2% at $76,825.4 by 03:06 ET (08:06 GMT), after touching an intraday low of $74,635.5 — a level not seen in almost ten months.
With selling pressure still evident, Bitcoin is now edging closer to a potential 15-month trough near $70,000.
Bitcoin tumbles over the weekend amid mass liquidations
The downturn rippled across the broader digital asset market. Around $111 billion was wiped off total cryptocurrency market capitalization over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data, highlighting the severity of the sell-off.
Roughly $1.6 billion worth of leveraged positions were liquidated, figures from Coinglass showed, as falling prices forced traders to rapidly exit bullish bets.
Reduced liquidity — particularly during weekend trading — intensified the move. As Bitcoin broke through key technical levels, stop-loss triggers and margin calls accelerated the decline, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of volatility across major tokens.
Bitcoin’s weakness has also been tied to a broader shift toward risk aversion in global markets, driven by renewed attention on U.S. monetary policy.
Trump’s Warsh pick for Fed chair pressures crypto
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve has prompted investors to reassess expectations around interest rates and liquidity.
Warsh, a former Fed governor, is widely regarded as relatively hawkish, particularly when it comes to inflation control and balance-sheet restraint.
That outlook points to potentially tighter financial conditions than markets had anticipated earlier in the year, curbing enthusiasm for speculative assets like cryptocurrencies, which typically thrive in low-rate, high-liquidity environments.
“Warsh’s past criticism of QE and the Fed’s use of its balance sheet to enhance monetary policy transmission triggered an immediate unwind in trades that had benefitted from currency debasement concerns, including bitcoin and other crypto tokens,” said David Scutt, market analyst at StoneX Group.
Bitcoin has now retreated sharply from the record highs reached last year, giving back a large portion of gains that were previously driven by hopes of greater institutional adoption and easier financial conditions.
Crypto prices today: altcoins deepen losses; Ether hits 7-month low
Losses extended across the broader crypto complex on Monday, adding to heavy declines seen over the weekend.
Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, fell 6.6% to $2,290.92, trading close to seven-month lows touched in the previous session.
XRP, the third-largest token, slipped 4.4% to $1.59.
Solana eased another 3%, while Cardano and Polygon were both down about 1.5%.
Among meme-linked tokens, Dogecoin and $TRUMP also edged lower.