Bitcoin drops below $60,000, weakest since October 2024

Bitcoin tumbled below $60,000 on Friday, breaking the lows of the early February crypto crash and reaching its weakest level since October 2024. The largest cryptocurrency is down nearly 20% in just the past week, and has now lost more than 52% since its October peak above $126,000. Several headwinds have converged over bitcoin recently — the most important being its largest single buyer, Michael Saylor's Strategy, having turned seller. Spot bitcoin ETFs suffered persistent outflows as investors pulled capital from the sector, instead allocating it to the red-hot artificial intelligence trade and related stocks. Stubbornly elevated inflation and a hot labor market report Friday also prompted investors to rethink the path of U.S. monetary policy. Markets that earlier this year expected rate cuts have now fully priced in the Federal Reserve's next move as a rate hike. With that, U.S. stocks have lost momentum after a powerful run to record highs, weighing on risk appetite across markets. The Nasdaq is lower by more than 2% Friday. Crypto investors have also been grappling with renewed concerns about whether artificial intelligence and quantum computing could expose weaknesses of crypto protocols. In a fitting bit of timing, privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) plunged more than 40% overnight after a critical vulnerability was discovered with the help of Anthropic's latest Opus 4.8 AI model.