Bitcoin Drops to $69K, Down 45% Due to Geopolitical and Macro Pressures
Bitcoin fell through the psychologically important $70,000 level on Thursday, extending a sharp decline that has erased substantial gains from recent months. The cryptocurrency touched an intraday low of $69,100, marking its weakest price since November 2024, shortly after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory sparked widespread optimism in the sector. From its all-time high above $125,000 which was reached in October 2025, Bitcoin has now lost roughly 45 percent of its value.
Major altcoins have followed the same downward trajectory, with Ethereum dropping 30% over the past week, BNB declining 23%, and Solana falling 27%. Trading volumes remain elevated as investors continue to reduce exposure across the digital asset class. The synchronized move lower reflects growing risk aversion rather than isolated token-specific issues.
Contributing Factors Behind the Sharp Correction
The current downturn appears to have accelerated following several macroeconomic and geopolitical developments that unfolded in rapid succession. Initially this may have been triggered by the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chair, with investors anticipating a potentially more hawkish stance on balance sheet reduction. However, that announcement was preceded several days earlier by heightened tensions in the US-EU dispute over Greenland, which contributed to broader equity market weakness and spillover effects into risk assets like cryptocurrencies.
Escalation of US-Iran tensions the following day pushed Bitcoin down to the $77,000 area, further unsettling market sentiment. Subsequent release of 3.5 million pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein by the Department of Justice added another layer of uncertainty. We have been reviewing the materials and have noted apparent early investments by Epstein-linked entities in Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream and a reported $3 million commitment to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, along with other connections to figures involved in Bitcoin’s formative years.
These disclosures, combined with the earlier macro triggers, appear to have prompted significant capital flight from the sector. Exchange-traded funds tracking Bitcoin have recorded billions in outflows over recent days, amplifying the downward pressure. While many had anticipated a healthy correction after the rapid run-up in 2025, the speed and depth of the current move have caught a sizable portion of the market off guard.
Industry commentator Bob Kendall of the Kendall Report offered a structural explanation for the sustained weakness, arguing that Bitcoin’s price discovery mechanism has fundamentally changed. He contends that the introduction of cash-settled futures, perpetual swaps, options, spot ETFs, prime broker lending, wrapped Bitcoin, and various structured products has effectively removed the hard scarcity constraint that once underpinned the asset’s valuation premise.
In his view, these instruments allow investors to create synthetic exposure far beyond the actual 21 million coin supply cap, turning Bitcoin into a derivatives-dominated market similar to gold, silver, and certain commodities after they underwent comparable financialization. Kendall further suggests that large institutions can now generate essentially unlimited paper Bitcoin claims, enabling them to short rallies, trigger liquidations, and repurchase exposure at lower levels in a repeating cycle. He describes this dynamic as a fractional reserve pricing system rather than a pure supply-and-demand market driven by on-chain holdings.
Whether this perspective fully accounts for the current decline remains a topic of debate, but it highlights the evolving role of traditional finance in Bitcoin and crypto markets.