Bitcoin has longest losing streak since August in bruising week

[NEW YORK] Bitcoin is poised for its longest losing streak since August, weighed down by the Middle East conflict, liquidations of bullish bets and this week’s rare sale of tokens by the dominant corporate buyer. 

The original cryptocurrency fell for the fifth straight day on Thursday (Jun 4), tumbling as low as US$61,322 before recouping some losses. 

Bitcoin is now trading at a four-month low and close to testing the market bottom of early February. A week marked by Strategy Inc’s first sale of Bitcoin since 2022, unprecedented exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows and a further decoupling from record-breaking tech stocks has sapped confidence throughout the sector.  

“This week has been painful in crypto. There is really no other way of putting it,” Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital asset research, said in a note. 

Traders wrong-footed by the steep sell-off have been left nursing large losses. Almost US$4 billion of bullish bets have been wiped out since the start of the week, data from CoinGlass show, with Bitcoin leading the way. 

Bitcoin went through a six-day stretch of daily losses till Aug 2 last year, although the declines have been far steeper this week. 

Meanwhile, Bitcoin ETFs – a major source of buying since they launched in early 2024 – have turned into a drag on the market. 

Investors have pulled nearly US$4.4 billion from US-listed Bitcoin ETFs over the past 13 sessions in a record-long streak of outflows, indicated data compiled by Bloomberg.

The market swoon is not confined to Bitcoin. Runner-up token Ether has fallen to its lowest since April 2025, trading around US$1,780 at 8.40 am on Thursday. Bitcoin was at around US$63,500. 

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Of critical importance now, according to Kendrick, is what Michael Saylor’s mega-accumulator Strategy does on Monday, when it typically announces Bitcoin purchases. Strategy’s sale of 32 Bitcoin this week was minuscule compared to its US$53 billion reserve, but the bearish environment in which it landed dealt a huge blow to confidence. 

Kendrick noted that days after its previous sale of Bitcoin in December 2022, Strategy bought more tokens than it had sold. “This time, I suspect the buying following the selling will be more aggressive,” or as much as 100 times the number of tokens Strategy divested, Kendrick wrote. 

This week’s sell-off underscored Bitcoin’s divergence from technology stocks, which hit records even as the token retreated. Bitcoin has lost about half its value since hitting an all-time high above US$126,000 last October. 

The token remains vulnerable to macro risks, falling further in the wake of overnight strikes that have threatened US-Iran talks for an interim peace deal. For equities, it has been more of a mixed picture, with European benchmarks mainly in the green on Thursday, while US futures pointed lower. BLOOMBERG