The cryptocurrency market has left behind one of the harshest weeks in recent years. The selling pressure that spanned the week wiped out approximately $390 billion from the digital asset market. Total market capitalization remains just over $2 trillion, according to TradingView data. That level marked less than half of the nearly $4.2 trillion peak seen in October.
Sharp weekly loss in Bitcoin and ether
Bitcoin fell 17.3% this week and ether fell 22%. Both assets are headed for their biggest weekly declines since November 2022. At that time, the collapse of the FTX exchange created widespread panic in the market. Although there was limited stabilization on Saturday, Bitcoin traded just above $60,000 and ether traded around $1,550.
The weekly decline in Bitcoin and ether was among the sharpest declines since November 2022.
The selling wave was not limited only to major cryptocurrencies. One of the heaviest liquidations of the year took place in the derivative markets. According to CoinGlass data, approximately $7 billion in leveraged positions in digital assets were closed during the week. $5.7 billion of this amount consisted of long positions opened with upward expectations. The harshest liquidations were recorded on Mondays and Fridays.
Strategy sales and ETF exits increase pressure
Behind the weakness in the market, several negative factors came to the fore at the same time. At the beginning of the week, Strategy, the largest institutional Bitcoin holder, announced that it sold Bitcoin for the first time in nearly four years. The sale remained at around $2.5 million, with only 32 BTC. However, this step made investors nervous, as Michael Saylor’s company has long been seen as a source of constant demand in the market. Strategy is known as the company previously known as MicroStrategy.
Vetle Lunde, director of K33 Research, said some of the money coming out of Bitcoin ETFs could be a sign of a broader capital shift away from crypto assets and toward AI investments.
Investors have also begun to question whether Strategy will sell additional Bitcoin in the future to cover its growing preferred stock obligations. During the same period, money outflows from Bitcoin ETFs continued. K33 Research President Vetle Lunde argued that some of these outflows may be linked to the capital movement from cryptocurrencies to artificial intelligence-focused investments.
Mini dictionary: Bitcoin ETF is an exchange-traded fund that gives investors access to products tied to the price of this asset without holding Bitcoin directly. In spot Bitcoin ETFs, the fund attempts to track the price by buying and storing Bitcoin directly.
Macro data and interest rate expectations deepened sales
In the last part of the week, pressure increased on the macroeconomic front. US employment data, released on Friday and coming in above expectations, reshaped investors’ predictions about the US Federal Reserve’s next step. In the markets that expected an interest rate cut at the beginning of the year, the possibility of a new interest rate increase started to be talked about more if inflation remained high.
This picture pushed US bond yields up. The Nasdaq 100 index also had its worst day since the tariff-induced selloff in April 2025, ending the strong upward streak that had fueled optimism on Wall Street this year. Artificial intelligence stocks approaching record levels and IPO expectations for companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX have also turned investors’ attention to areas other than crypto.
With the calmness that came over the weekend, it was seen that sales had stopped for now. But whether the market has bottomed out or is the latest in a broader downward trend remains largely dependent on bond yields, monetary policy expectations and capital flows into artificial intelligence investments.
