Bitcoin Plunges Toward $60,000 in Its Worst Single Day Since the FTX Collapse
Bitcoin suffered its sharpest one-day fall in more than three years on Thursday, February 5, sliding to around $60,000 before bouncing back toward $70,000 on Friday morning. The drop erased the gains the largest cryptocurrency had made since late 2024 and left it roughly half its value of four months ago.
The selloff hit almost every corner of the market at once: major tokens, crypto stocks, bitcoin miners and the companies that hold bitcoin on their balance sheets. It also coincided with sharp falls in silver, gold and software stocks, underlining how closely crypto is now moving with broader risk assets.
How the day unfolded
Bitcoin broke below $70,000 early on Thursday, its first trade under that level in more than a year, and the pressure built through the U.S. session. By mid-afternoon, CoinDesk reported that the price had fallen more than 10% in 24 hours to a session low just above $63,000, putting it on track for its steepest daily decline since November 8, 2022, when the collapse of FTX sent bitcoin down 14.3% in a day.
The slide continued into the evening. CoinDesk later reported that bitcoin touched about $60,000 late Thursday. CNBC put the low at $60,062, the lowest level since October 2024. The cryptocurrency set its record high just above $126,000 in early October 2025.
Ether, XRP and most other large tokens fell even harder. Almost every asset tracked by CoinDesk’s indexes lost more than 10% over 24 hours, with XRP down 19% at one point. Earlier in the day, CoinDesk reported that the Crypto Fear and Greed Index had dropped to 11, its lowest reading of the year, and that more than $800 million in leveraged positions had been liquidated on centralized exchanges in a single 24-hour period. That figure was recorded before the steepest part of the decline.
Crypto-linked stocks followed. Coinbase, Galaxy, Strategy and BitMine all fell more than 10% on Thursday, according to CoinDesk, as did miners including Mara, CleanSpark, Hut 8 and Bitfarms.
Thin liquidity and a broad risk-off mood
Analysts pointed to several forces working together. CoinDesk highlighted thin liquidity: with few orders on the books, relatively modest selling can move prices sharply and set off chains of forced liquidations among traders using borrowed money.
The wider market offered no shelter. Silver fell about 14% on the day, gold dropped more than 2%, and the iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF slid more than 3%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each lost about 1%, CoinDesk reported. Software stocks have frequently moved in step with bitcoin, and their weakness has added to pressure on crypto in recent weeks.
“There’s still no signal that we bottomed out,” Adrian Fritz, chief investment strategist at 21Shares, told CoinDesk. He identified bitcoin’s 200-day moving average, around $58,000 to $60,000, as an important support zone, noting that it lines up with bitcoin’s realized price, a measure of the average price at which current holders acquired their coins.
Strategy reports a $12.4 billion quarterly loss
The crash landed on the same day Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, reported fourth-quarter results. In its earnings release, the company posted a net loss of $12.4 billion for the quarter, driven by an unrealized loss of about $17.4 billion on its digital assets under fair value accounting. Strategy said it held 713,502 bitcoin as of February 1, acquired at a total cost of $54.26 billion, and had $2.3 billion in cash at the end of 2025.
On the earnings call, chief executive Phong Le said bitcoin would have to fall to around $8,000 and stay there for years before the company’s balance sheet came under serious stress, according to The Block. Executive chairman Michael Saylor said he would lead a program focused on bitcoin’s security against future quantum computing threats, CoinDesk reported.
A partial rebound on Friday
By Friday morning, bitcoin had climbed back above $70,000, up roughly 17% from Thursday’s low, according to CoinDesk. Strategy shares rose 14%, and Galaxy and Mara gained 15% and 12%, respectively. The Block cited Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan as seeing possible signs of seller exhaustion after bitcoin’s steepest two-week decline since 2022.
Others remained cautious. Paul Howard of trading firm Wincent told CoinDesk that bitcoin was deeply oversold and trading volumes were at their highest in more than two years, and that “it would be odd if we did not see at least some short term reversion here.” A bounce of that kind, however, does not on its own mark the end of a downtrend.
Why it matters
For crypto investors, Thursday’s move is a reminder of how much leverage and how little liquidity have built up in the market since October’s peak. A 50% drawdown from a record high is not unusual by bitcoin’s historical standards, but this one has unfolded at a time when spot ETFs, public companies and institutional funds hold far more bitcoin than in past cycles, spreading the losses across a much wider group of investors.
The episode also adds pressure on bitcoin treasury companies, whose share prices and fundraising depend heavily on the coin’s price, and on miners, whose revenue falls along with it. How those businesses respond, and whether buyers return at these levels, will shape the market in the weeks ahead.