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Bitcoin’s fast tumble back to $84,000 during U.S. morning hours Thursday came alongside equally speedy declines in stocks and precious metals.
But while stocks, gold and silver have since bounced off their worst levels, crypto remains near its session lows, with BTC, ether , XRP , and solana all down 5%-7% over the last 24 hours.
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“Everything from weak earnings results to worries around Iran and government shutdown are causing a broad-based selloff,” said Joshua Lim, global co-head of markets at prime brokerage FalconX. “It’s triggering a bigger unwind across consensus hedge fund and commodity trading advisors positions in metals and equities.”
“And crypto also taking some pain from the general risk-off sentiment,” he added.
The Thursday selloff triggered over $650 million in liquidations of bullish leveraged positions betting on higher prices across all crypto assets, according to data from CoinGlass, the second-most-violent flush over the past month.
Funding rates suggest bottom forming
Perpetual swap funding rates — a key gauge of market froth — have now turned bearish across major tokens, including for ETH, SOL and XRP. In perpetual futures contracts, which do have expiry dates, funding rates are periodic payments exchanged between traders based on the difference between the perpetual contract price and the spot price.
When funding turns negative, it means short sellers (those betting on lower prices) are paying longs (those betting on a rebound) to maintain their positions — signaling that the majority of traders are leaning bearish.
Historically, persistent negative funding rates have often preceded short-term bottoms as overly crowded short positions become vulnerable to sudden price reversals.
Perp funding rates (CoinGlass)
Some key levels
U.S. spot bitcoin ETF buyers have an aggregate cost basis near $84,099, only barely below the current price of $84,400. Meanwhile, the True Market Mean Price, a long-term fair value derived from Investor Cap divided by Active Supply, sits just above $80,000. That $80,000 closely matches the November 2025 low, making it a key structural support zone and potential mean-reversion point.
A sustained break below $80,000, however, would likely open the door to a retest of April 2025 levels, when bitcoin briefly fell to around $76,000 amid the selloff triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariff drive.
How bad is it and what could turn things around
January isn’t over yet, but bitcoin is on track to post its fourth consecutive monthly loss — highly notable given that BTC wasn’t down four straight months even amid its 80% tumble during the crypto winter of 2022. One would have to go back to 2019 to find a streak of four consecutive lower monthly candles for bitcoin.
“The equity market has been all about the AI infra trade that is supported by deregulation and tax benefits that kick in this year,” sasaid Mark Connors, chief investment officer at Risk Dimensions. “This has overshadowed BTC, that and the standard gold lead BTC pattern we saw in 2020. I believe BTC will not take its next leg higher until we have a ‘print’ by the US.”