Bitcoin dropped to a seven-month low on November 21, closing in on the USD 80,000 level, with some analysts predicting “much heavier losses” in the coming days for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin fell to USD 80,553, and ether hit a four-month low, as cryptocurrencies led a broad flight from riskier assets, spurred by investor worries over lofty tech valuations and uncertainty over near-term US interest rate cuts.
Cryptocurrencies are often viewed as a barometer of risk appetite, and their slide highlights the market’s “fragile mood.” At the same point in time, high-flying artificial intelligence (AI) stocks are tumbling too, with volatility spiking. Bitcoin went down 12% in the middle week of November, following a stellar run in 2025 that propelled it to a record high above USD 120,000 in October, buoyed by favourable regulatory changes towards the virtual assets globally.
According to analysts, the market remains scarred by a record single-day slump in October that saw more than USD 19 billion of positions liquidated. As it plunged through USD 100,000 in November and closed in on the USD 80,000 level on 21 of the month, some analysts told Reuters that bitcoin was reaching levels that corporate and institutional investors on average paid for their tokens, and where they might have to sell to prevent losses.
“Bitcoin has erased all its year-to-date gains and is now down 12% for 2025, while Ether has lost close to 19%. If it’s telling a story about risk sentiment as a whole, then things could start to get really, really ugly, and that’s the concern now,” Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG, said of the fall in bitcoin.
The latest plunge will compound problems for so-called crypto treasury companies, which have been big buyers of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies so far in 2025. These companies hold the crypto on their balance sheets in the hope that the price rises.
Standard Chartered has estimated that a drop below USD 90,000 for bitcoin could leave half of these companies’ holdings “underwater,” a term which typically refers to holding assets worth less than what was paid for them.
Analysts say the companies could be forced to raise new funds or sell down their crypto holdings, putting further downward pressure on prices.
Listed companies collectively hold 4% of all the bitcoin in circulation, and 3.1% of ether, Standard Chartered estimates.
“The procyclical nature of bitcoin treasury companies is fully obvious now, if it wasn’t obvious six months ago. They buy high, and now some of them are selling low,” Brent Donnelly, president at analytics firm Spectra Markets, said in a note.