The decline came amid doubts about future U.S. interest rate cuts and overall market risk aversion.
Published November 18, 2025
Bitcoin has fallen below $90,000 for the first time in seven months, in the latest sign that investor risk appetite is drying up across financial markets.
As US markets opened on Tuesday, cryptocurrencies began to rebound. But Monday’s sharp selloff in risk-sensitive assets had already wiped out all of this year’s gains.
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It is now nearly 30% below its October peak of $126,000.
It fell 0.5% to $91,338.47 after falling as low as $89,286.75 during European trading.
Roughly $1.2 trillion has been wiped from the total market value of all cryptocurrencies over the past six weeks, according to market tracker CoinGecko.
Market participants said a combination of doubts about future interest rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve and overall market risk aversion, which has become volatile after a long rally, are causing the cryptocurrency’s decline.
“Listed companies and financial institutions exiting positions after surging in the upswing is amplifying the cascading decline, further increasing the risk of contagion to the broader market,” said Joshua Chew, co-chairman of the Hong Kong Web3 Association.
“As support wanes and macro uncertainty increases, trust can erode at an alarming rate.”
Speculators who had poured money into cryptocurrencies in hopes of receiving U.S. regulatory support are starting to slow down, and there has been a steady exodus from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and similar products in recent weeks, said Joseph Edwards of Enigma Securities.
“The selling pressure here is not unique, but it comes from relative weakness on the buy side…a lot of retail buyers were hurt in last month’s flash crash,” he said, referring to the October crash that saw $19 billion liquidated across leveraged positions.
Cryptocurrency stockpiles such as Strategy, miners such as Riot Platforms and Mara Holdings, and exchange Coinbase all fell due to the souring mood.
‘Underwater’
This year has seen a boom in public crypto asset companies, with small and medium-sized enterprises from unrelated sectors becoming crypto agents by announcing plans to buy and hold cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets.
However, Standard Chartered estimates that half of these companies’ Bitcoin holdings could become “underwater” (a term that typically refers to assets that are worth less than what they paid for them) if Bitcoin falls below $90,000.
According to Standard Chartered, listed companies hold 4% of all Bitcoin in circulation and 3.1% of Ether.
The cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) has also been under pressure for months, losing nearly 40% of its value since its August peak of over $4,955.
“Overall, crypto market sentiment has declined significantly and has continued since October deleveraging,” said Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at Astronaut Capital.
