Bitcoin fell below $63,000 on Thursday for the first time since February 24, extending a selloff that has already wiped out more than 14% this week and 21% over the past four weeks. The price move put a fresh spotlight on how quickly the market has turned from a quiet pullback into a broad crypto rout.
That drop is why traders and investors are searching the market now: the coins are not just sliding, the signals around them are flashing stress. Demand for protection pushed the 30-day implied volatility index BVIV to 53.17, its highest level since April 2, while U.S.-listed spot ETFs saw another $50 million pulled on Wednesday, the 13th straight trading day of outflows.
Bitcoin traded as low as $61,300 before recovering to $62,500, but the rebound did little to calm sentiment after $3 billion in liquidations over two days and a wave of traders loading up on $60,000 puts. The scale of the move matters because spot ETFs have become a proxy for institutional demand, and those flows are still heading out rather than in.
Paul Howard said in an email that the slide began with Strategy’s transfer, which set off ETF outflows, and has since been fueled by speculative news about Mt. Gox liquidations. He said BTC at $50,000 is a level some are starting to discuss as a bottom this year, and added that the absence of catalysts, along with liquidity moving into other tech sectors such as AI, points to more volatility ahead.
Some traders are still looking to the low $60,000 area for support, and analysts at Material Indicators said that region is the first major zone they are watching. They said the local low sits around $59.9k and that the 200-week moving average is in the same general area, but they also warned that this does not guarantee support. It simply means the market is reaching a level where it has to make a decision.
For now, that decision looks unsettled. Bitcoin has already lost enough ground to force a reset in expectations, and if the low $60,000 area fails to hold, the next market conversation is likely to shift quickly toward whether $50,000 is not a worst-case target, but the level buyers eventually have to defend.
