Crypto market sell-off intensifies amid equity rout, geopolitical tensions

The sell-off in global equity markets spilled over into cryptocurrencies, which remain under pressure amid volatile global macroeconomic conditions. Bitcoin and Ethereum registered sharp declines over the past 48 hours as global risk sentiment weakened. 

Bitcoin slipped below the $80,000 mark after failing to hold above $89,000, with the decline exacerbated by thin weekend liquidity. On a week-on-week basis, Bitcoin is down nearly 7 per cent from late last week, while Ethereum has fallen by around 10 per cent, marking one of the steeper short-term retracements in recent sessions. 

The sell-off followed US President Donald Trump’s nomination of hawkish Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair, which triggered a historic $7 trillion sell-off in metals and a sharp rally in the US dollar, dampening risk appetite across asset classes. The downturn also coincided with a further escalation in geopolitical tensions. 

“The decline coincides with a renewed escalation in geopolitical tensions, particularly intensified conflict between the United States and Iran. This has unsettled global markets and triggered a broad risk-off response. In this environment, crypto assets have moved in line with other risk-sensitive instruments, reflecting a shift towards liquidity and traditional safe-haven assets,” said Nischal Shetty, founder of WazirX.

Bitcoin, Ethereum sink amid market volatility

Bitcoin briefly slipped below the $76,000 level, touching an intraday low of $75,815.88, before recovering to trade above $78,900. At last check, the cryptocurrency was trading at $78,898.74, down 6.06 per cent over the past 24 hours, with trading volumes of $73.06 billion. Over the same period, Bitcoin moved in a wide range of $75,815.88 to $84,107.95, according to CoinMarketCap data. 

Bitcoin has now declined more than 37 per cent from its peak of $126,198.07, recorded on October 7, 2025. Although its market capitalisation has slipped below $2 trillion to $1.57 trillion, it continues to remain the largest cryptocurrency by market value.   Looking ahead, analysts believe the $74,500 level is a key area for Bitcoin, potentially serving as a base for a trend reversal. "Current prices look attractive for large players to enter the market. This could improve liquidity, helping BTC stabilise near the $85,500 zone. However, if the bulls fail to defend this zone, we could see a deeper retracement towards $58,000 before recovery," said Akshat Siddhant, lead quant Analyst at Mudrex. 

Ethereum mirrored the broader market trend, slipping below the $2,500 level to its lowest levels since March 2025. At the time of writing, Ethereum was trading 9.33 per cent lower at $2,445.34, with a 24-hour trading volume of $49.17 billion. The token traded between $2,248.70 and $2,703.38 over the past 24 hours on CoinMarketCap. 

Ethereum is now down more than 50 per cent from its all-time high of $4,953.73, scaled on August 25, 2025.

 

Altcoins under pressure

The weakness extended across the broader altcoin space, with most major tokens trading in the red. River, Story, World Liberty Financial, Jupiter, Virtuals Protocol, Pudgy Penguins, Aptos, Worldcoin, Solana, Kaspa, Immutable, Stacks, KuCoin Token, Bonk, Filecoin, GateToken, Dash, Optimism, MemeCore, Zcash, Sui, NEAR Protocol, Pepe, OKB, Ethena, Arbitrum, Dogecoin, VeChain and Injective were among the top laggards, declining between 9 per cent and 33 per cent. 

Meanwhile, Quant, Hyperliquid and JUST bucked the broader trend, posting modest gains of between 0.8 per cent and 1.7 per cent, according to CoinMarketCap.

Top trending cryptocurrencies

The top trending cryptocurrencies on CoinMarketCap included Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Chainlink (LINK), Bulla (BULLA), OFFICIAL TRUMP (TRUMP), Falcon Finance (FF), Humanity Protocol (H), FIGHT (FIGHT) and Dogecoin (DOGE).