The world’s largest cryptocurrency has tanked to its lowest price since April. Bitcoin is down nearly 2% over the past 24 hours and hit a low of nearly $81,000 late Thursday night—underneath its last floor of $82,175 in November. On Friday, the token posted a modest rebound and now trades at around $82,290, according to data from Binance. Bitcoin’s freefall has spread to other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, which is down 4% over the past 24 hours to now about $2,660.
Meanwhile, this week has seen an even more dramatic downturn in the price of precious metals, which until recently had been on an unprecedented tear. Gold is down 11% over the past day and silver has dropped an even greater 31%. Platinum and copper are also down.
The volatility in the crypto and metals markets comes as President Donald Trump announced Friday morning that he was nominating Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve. It also comes as investors remain uneasy over Big Tech’s mammoth investments in AI. After markets closed on Thursday, Microsoft reported strong earnings but its results failed to assuage investor anxiety over increased spending and slowing revenue gains. The tech giant’s stock plummeted more than 10% in after-hours trading.
“Concerns around heavy AI investment by Big Tech, without the corresponding earnings to justify the spend, appear to be unsettling broader risk assets,” said Matt Howells-Barby, a vice president at the crypto exchange Kraken, in an email.
Jake Ostrovskis, head of OTC trading at the market maker Wintermute, echoed Howells-Barby and said the drop in Microsoft’s stock and gold prices “kick-started the move lower in risk.”
The downturn in Bitcoin’s price continues the cryptocurrency’s flagging performance since October, when new tariff threats from Trump preceded a “flash crash” in the crypto market. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has historically tracked tech stocks, but Bitcoin and the S&P 500 have diverged over the past three months. Bitcoin is down more than 30% since early October, while the S&P 500 is up nearly 3%.
Flagging token prices have prompted some analysts to say that the crypto market, which hit all-time highs in 2025, has turned bearish. Still, institutional interest in stablecoins and new crypto regulation has others cautiously optimistic. “This is just a mild Crypto Winter,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at the forex broker FxPro, in a recent research note.
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