Bitcoin Price Forecast - BTC-USD Holds Around $70K in Risk-Off Selloff

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) – from $126,000 euphoria to a $70,000 stress test

BTC-USD breaks below $70,000 for the first time since 2024

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is trading in a full-blown drawdown phase. Spot prices have slid from an all-time high just above $126,000 in early October to the low-$70,000 area, a collapse of roughly 40% in four months. Overnight and into early U.S. trade, Bitcoin traded between about $70,098 and $76,130 before cracking key support and hitting intraday lows around $69,055–$70,129.6. On several feeds it last changed hands near $70,300–$70,700, down roughly 7–8% on the day, nearly 20% over the past week and close to 20% year-to-date.

This is the first decisive move below $70,000 since November 2024, and the price action shows it. BTC-USD has fallen in seven of the last eight sessions, logging its worst week since November 2022, when a 21% plunge followed another market shock. Over the past year Bitcoin is off about 29%, while gold is up roughly 69% over the same period – a brutal reversal for anyone leaning on the “digital gold” narrative.

BTC-USD selling is being driven by thin liquidity and forced liquidations

The tape is being pushed around by poor depth and leverage unwinds rather than organic spot demand. Order books are thin, so every break of a round number accelerates the drop. Below $75,000, a cluster of stop-loss and margin levels was sitting in derivatives markets; once BTC-USD slipped through that zone, forced selling picked up sharply.

Over the last 24 hours alone, roughly $770 million of leveraged cryptocurrency positions have been liquidated, with more than $2 billion long and short positions flushed out over the week as prices slid through $75,000 and then $70,000. The pattern is typical: leveraged longs get crowded into the same range, a macro or flow shock knocks price lower, and the liquidation cascade becomes the dominant seller.

Technically, BTC-USD has broken below its 365-day moving average for the first time since March 2022. Since that breakdown roughly 83 days ago, the coin has already dropped around 23%, which is worse than the early-2022 bear phase. That move opens the door to a full retest of the $60,000–$65,000 band that on-chain and derivatives desks flag as the next major area where option hedges and stop orders are concentrated.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs: from structural buyer to $3 billion of January outflows

One of the biggest regime shifts is coming from the ETF complex. Throughout 2025 spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. acted as a structural buyer. That support has flipped. In January, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw more than $3 billion in net outflows after heavy redemptions late last year, according to Deutsche-bank style flow trackers. On a single day this week, those funds shed about $545 million, with the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) alone recording roughly $373 million in net outflows as its price slipped to about $39.58, down nearly 4.8% on the session.

This is the institutional tape for BTC-USD right now. The same vehicles that absorbed tens of thousands of coins in 2025 have turned into a transmission belt for selling. CryptoQuant notes that ETF demand has “reversed materially” and that U.S. funds, which were net buyers of about 46,000 bitcoin around this time last year, are net sellers in 2026. That shift is visible in the price – the 365-day moving-average break, the 23% slide since, and the current grind lower.

The flow pattern is not limited to Bitcoin. Spot ether ETFs registered around $79.48 million in net outflows in a recent session, while XRP spot ETFs actually saw net inflows of about $4.83 million, a small but notable divergence inside the crypto complex. This is effectively the “insider tape” for large pools of capital in this market: ETF creations and redemptions now matter as much as on-chain whale wallets.

Macro squeeze: Warsh, the Fed balance sheet and a clear ‘no bailout’ signal

Macro is aligned against BTC-USD. President Donald Trump’s choice of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair is being read as a hawkish signal. Warsh is associated with a faster reduction of the Fed’s balance sheet – a more aggressive quantitative tightening path. Bitcoin dipped again in U.S. premarket trading, down roughly 6.7% at about $70,666, as desks digested what a Warsh-led Fed might mean for liquidity.

The mechanism is straightforward. When the Fed lets its multi-trillion-dollar balance sheet shrink, bank reserves and excess liquidity in the system tend to fall. That usually hits long-duration and high-beta assets first: growth stocks, speculative tech, and crypto. Bitcoin’s slide of more than 7% this week and nearly 20% so far in 2026 lines up almost tick-for-tick with that narrative.

Policy rhetoric is not crypto-friendly either. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, pressed in Congress on whether the U.S. government could buy Bitcoin or orchestrate support, stated flatly that he does not have authority to do that and cannot direct banks to bail out crypto. That answer matters: it closes the door on any residual hope that BTC-USD might one day enjoy the kind of backstop traditional markets received in 2008–2020.

At the same time, the U.S. regulatory landscape for digital assets remains stuck. A high-profile White House meeting designed to break the stalemate on crypto legislation ended without a deal, with banks and crypto firms still at odds over stablecoin rewards and how far traditional finance should be allowed to reach into tokenized deposits. Washington is sending a mixed but mostly restrictive signal at precisely the moment the market needs clarity.

Labor market and indices confirm a broader risk-off move, not a crypto-only story

BTC-USD is not falling in isolation. U.S. indices and labor data show a broad rotation out of risk. Weekly jobless claims jumped to 231,000 for the week ending January 31, up 22,000 from the prior 209,000 print and above the 212,000 consensus. Challenger, Gray & Christmas counted 108,435 announced layoffs in January, up 205% from December and 118% year-on-year, the worst January for job cuts since 2009. Hiring plans of just 5,306 roles are the weakest start to a year since Challenger began tracking this data.

Equity markets are reacting. The Dow Jones Industrial Average around 49,255.70 is down roughly 245.6 points or 0.50%. The S&P 500 at about 6,812.13 is off 70.59 points or 1.03%. The Nasdaq sits near 22,573.49, lower by around 331.09 points or 1.45%. Futures on the broader U.S. 30 index show levels around 49,212.70, down 288.2 points or 0.58%, and U.S. 500 futures trade near 6,816.30, off 66.4 points or 0.97%.

Volatility has repriced sharply higher. The S&P 500 VIX volatility index has jumped to around 21.99, up 3.35 points or nearly 18%, while the Dollar Index has firmed to about 97.57, a gain of 0.08%. The 10-year Treasury yield is trading around 4.24–4.27%, slightly below yesterday’s close but still at levels that keep real yields restrictive. That combination – higher volatility, a stronger dollar, and yields that are not retreating – is textbook risk-off, and BTC-USD is moving with the rest of the high-beta complex.

AI shock in Big Tech is spilling directly into BTC-USD and crypto beta

The trigger for this leg of selling sits in Big Tech, not inside crypto. Alphabet (GOOGL) has set the tone after reporting fourth-quarter revenue of nearly $114 billion, up 18% year-on-year, and net income of $34.5 billion, up 30%. The problem is not earnings; it is spending. Alphabet guided 2026 capital expenditures to the $175 billion–$185 billion range, roughly double its 2025 level, as it doubles down on AI infrastructure.

Alphabet stock slid about 4–6% in premarket trading, edging below $323 after closing a little over $333. Qualcomm (QCOM) added to the pressure with softer guidance driven by an industry-wide memory shortage, sending its stock down around 10–11%. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has just absorbed a 17% single-session drop. Software names have been hit by fears that AI tools could eat into their business models rather than merely power them.

As these trades unwind, capital comes out of the same growth, tech and AI baskets that held a large share of crypto exposure. Funds de-risking across GOOGL, AMD, NVIDIA (NVDA), and other AI beneficiaries are also trimming BTC-USD and ETH-USD. That is why Bitcoin’s plunge below $70,000 coincides with a trillion-dollar wipeout in software and semiconductor market caps and why volatility in crypto is tracking the Nasdaq instead of acting as a hedge.

BTC-USD versus gold and silver – ‘digital gold’ is losing the performance race

The last twelve months have been unkind to the “digital gold” thesis. Over that period Bitcoin is down close to 29%, while physical gold has rallied about 69%. Spot gold surged to an all-time high near $5,625 an ounce on January 29 and, even after a violent pullback, still trades around $4,850–$4,900 per ounce, down about 1–2% on the day. COMEX April gold futures recently printed around $4,854.40, off $96.40 or 1.95%, yet still up roughly 15% year-to-date.

Silver has been even more explosive. Futures spiked as high as roughly $121.75 an ounce last Thursday, then experienced a historic collapse. Prices plunged nearly 30% in a single Friday session, bounced for two days, and then dropped again by as much as 17% in Asian trading. Most-active contracts recently sat in the mid-$70s per ounce – around $74.82–$77 – down 9–11% on the day and more than a third below last week’s peak.

For macro desks, the message is simple. In a world of tariff uncertainty, a hawkish potential Fed chair, and elevated real yields, gold is still attracting defensive allocation while BTC-USD is being treated as a high-beta tech proxy. Wenny Cai of Synfutures described the global backdrop as “fragile resilience,” with capital rotating into classic havens and gold emerging as the “clearest expression of risk aversion.” The numbers back that up: BTC-USD is ~40% off its October peak; gold, even after a double-digit pullback from the highs, remains comfortably positive on the year.

Altcoins and meme tokens: full-spectrum deleveraging across crypto

The altcoin complex is tracking, and in several cases amplifying, the moves in BTC-USD. Ether (ETH-USD), the second-largest token, is trading around $2,080–$2,100, down roughly 6–7% on the day and about 23% this week, its worst weekly performance since November 2022. One print showed ETH-USD at $2,098.92, down 7.4%, another at $2,073.77, off 5.7%, all telling the same story: leverage is coming out, and dip-buyers are not rushing in.

XRP (XRP-USD) has dropped around 10–13% to about $1.42, underperforming even BTC-USD on a percentage basis despite small net inflows into XRP spot ETFs. Solana (SOL-USD) fell roughly 6% on the session and is down about 24% on the week, hitting around $88.42, a two-year low. Cardano (ADA-USD) has eased roughly 5%. Polygon (MATIC-USD) lost about 3.2%. Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) is off 4–6%.

Speculative meme tokens are being hit even harder. HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu (ERC-20) has slumped around 10.06%, and a MAGA-branded token is down about 5.91%. These are classic high-beta spillovers: when BTC-USD breaks major supports and margin calls hit, the long tail of speculative names suffers larger percentage losses as traders raise cash wherever they can.

Flows, psychology and the $70,000 line – what breaks next for BTC-USD

Psychology around BTC-USD is shifting fast. Marion Laboure at Deutsche Bank describes the steady selling as a sign that traditional capital is losing interest and that pessimism around crypto is growing. Maja Vujinovic at FG Nexus notes that the “straight line bull run” many were counting on has not materialized and that Bitcoin is no longer trading on hype, but on liquidity and capital flows.

The $70,000 line has become the nucleus around which that psychology is forming. Analysts like James Butterfill at CoinShares identify $70,000 as a key psychological and technical level. As long as BTC-USD hovers around that handle, options dealers and systematic strategies revolve their hedges around it. If it fails decisively, projections into the $60,000–$65,000 zone become more than just theoretical. CryptoQuant’s work on the 365-day moving average and the 23% post-breakdown drop points to that same range as a plausible magnet.

At the same time, ETF outflows of $545 million in a single day, cumulative January redemptions above $3 billion, and weekly liquidations north of $2 billion are all signaling that the market is still in the middle of a deleveraging, not at the end. Until those numbers stabilize – ETF flows flatten, liquidation totals fall, and BTC-USD can spend several sessions above $70,000 without triggering forced selling – the tape will remain vulnerable to sharp air pockets.

Policy, data calendar and how macro can swing BTC-USD from here

The near-term calendar is loaded with catalysts that matter for BTC-USD because they matter for liquidity and risk appetite. The Labor Department has job openings data queued up, followed by the official January jobs report on February 11 and the January CPI inflation report on February 13. Those dates were shifted after a brief government services lapse, but the economic impact is unchanged: a strong jobs print or upside surprise on CPI would reinforce the case for a hawkish Warsh-led Fed and keep real yields elevated.

On the other hand, weaker-than-expected jobs or inflation readings that show more decisive disinflation could ease some pressure on long-duration assets and help stabilize BTC-USD above the $70,000 handle. That is why macro desks are watching both ETF flow screens and the economic calendar at the same time. The Fed’s balance sheet trajectory, the shape of the Treasury curve, and any further comments from Warsh or Bessent on liquidity, tariffs and financial conditions will feed directly into crypto pricing.

Washington politics remain an overhang. Warsh’s nomination is still under review, while an ongoing probe into current Fed Chair Jerome Powell generates additional uncertainty. Digital-asset legislation is stalled. Banks and crypto firms are fighting over stablecoin yield economics. None of this provides the kind of clear, supportive framework that might shore up BTC-USD when sentiment is already weak.

BTC-USD – stance, risk profile and a clear rating call

Putting the pieces together – a 40% drawdown from the $126,000 peak, a first break below $70,000 since 2024, more than $3 billion of January ETF outflows, around $2 billion of weekly liquidations, a macro backdrop of 4.2–4.3% 10-year yields, a Dollar Index near 97.5, and strong relative performance from gold – the balance of risk for BTC-USD in the near term tilts lower, toward the $60,000–$65,000 zone.

At the same time, the market has already absorbed a 17–20% weekly drop and a year-to-date loss near 20%. Forced selling is advanced but not yet exhausted. In this configuration, chasing downside after a break of $70,000 carries as much danger as blindly buying the dip. Positioning, ETF flows and macro data need to reset before a new, durable trend can be trusted.

The clean label here is a Hold on BTC-USD with a bearish short-term bias. The current zone around $70,000 is not attractive enough, on the numbers, to justify calling this a fresh long entry, but it is also late to panic-sell after a 40% peak-to-trough move while liquidations are already in full swing. Until ETF redemptions slow, macro data soften and BTC-USD can reclaim and hold levels above $75,000, downside risk toward $60,000–$65,000 remains very real, and positioning should reflect that.

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