In brief
- Bitcoin slid to a 15-month low, down more than half from its late-2025 peak, while derivatives data showed a sharp pullback in speculative positioning.
- Market sentiment gauges dropped into “extreme fear,” with options traders paying steep premiums for downside protection.
- Analysts pointed to Federal Reserve uncertainty, a rising dollar and spillovers from global bond and tech-sector stress as key drivers of the selloff.
Investor fear in the crypto market has intensified to a degree not seen since the collapse of the Terra Luna ecosystem in mid-2022, driven by a brutal, macro-led selloff.
Bitcoin’s price fell to a 15-month low of $60,255 on Thursday, marking a 52.2% decline from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,080, according to CoinGecko.
It comes as the Crypto Fear and Greed Index plummeted to 9 this week, squarely in “Extreme Fear” territory and at its lowest level in 42 months since Terra’s downfall
Terra Luna was a crypto ecosystem whose collapse in May 2022, after its algorithmic stablecoin lost its dollar peg, triggered one of the market’s sharpest confidence shocks on record.
“Looking back at this drawdown, it vividly reflects a core reality: in an environment where broad liquidity has not expanded meaningfully, global assets are being governed by the same tightening financing conditions and risk-aversion logic,” Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, told Decrypt.
Federal Reserve policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions are contributing to the stresses, analysts previously told Decrypt, warning that deteriorating momentum could push Bitcoin even lower.
The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has rallied from 95.205 on January 27 to 97.685, tightening financial conditions. That surge followed a chaotic Japanese government bond crisis in January that threatened to unravel the global yen carry trade.
Macroeconomic factors “play an outsized role in this downturn, as crypto continues to trade with strong correlation to equities and sensitivity to monetary policy signals.” Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, told Decrypt.
Aggregated open interest—the total value of outstanding derivatives contracts—for Bitcoin futures has plunged to $21.96 billion, a 15-month low, signaling a mass exodus of speculative capital, CryptoQuant data shows.
Meanwhile, options markets show a stark defensive tilt with Bitcoin’s 7-day and 30-day 25-delta skew falling below -28 and -24, respectively, indicating traders are paying a significant premium to buy bearish bets as downside protection.
“The primary driver is the risk-off wave from tech/AI sector fears,” Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at Bitrue, told Decrypt. “Investors increasingly doubt the sustainability of Big Tech’s massive AI capex.”
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