Bitcoin Bounces From 16-Month Low, but Set for Third Straight Weekly Loss

Bitcoin rebounded in Asian trading on Friday after touching its lowest level in 16 months, but the world’s largest cryptocurrency remained on course for a sharp weekly decline as a broad risk-off mood continued to weigh on digital assets.

Bitcoin rose around 5% to $66,144 by 01:48 ET, recovering from an intraday low of $60,187. Despite the bounce, the cryptocurrency has now lost more than half its value from the record high reached in October and has erased all gains made following Donald Trump’s election victory in late 2024.

The recovery came even as sentiment stayed fragile after Strategy Inc, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, reported a sharply wider fourth-quarter loss on Thursday. The loss was driven mainly by the decline in the value of its Bitcoin holdings, adding to investor anxiety across the crypto market.

Bitcoin was headed for a weekly drop of nearly 16%, marking its third consecutive week of losses. Selling pressure has intensified amid a broad retreat from speculative assets, particularly after Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as his pick for the next Federal Reserve chair.

Warsh is widely seen as less dovish, especially given his opposition to the Fed’s asset-buying programs. Markets fear this could lead to a leaner central bank balance sheet and tighter financial conditions over the long term, a backdrop that tends to hurt high-risk assets such as cryptocurrencies.

Weakness in U.S. technology stocks has compounded the pressure, with crypto prices closely tracking losses in growth and AI-linked equities during the recent sell-off.

Strategy’s fourth-quarter loss widened dramatically to $12.4 billion, compared with $670.8 million a year earlier, reflecting Bitcoin’s prolonged weakness since October. The company holds more than 713,000 Bitcoins at an average purchase price of about $76,000 per coin, leaving its holdings underwater at current market levels. This has fueled concerns that Strategy could eventually be forced to sell some Bitcoin to meet debt obligations, given its reliance on debt and equity issuance to fund purchases.

Altcoins also staged a modest rebound on Friday but remained deep in the red for the week. Ethereum climbed nearly 5% to around $1,917, yet was still down roughly 22% over the past seven days. XRP and BNB posted gains on the day but were each down about 20% for the week.

Solana was headed for a weekly loss of around 24%, while Cardano was down roughly 13.5%. Among memecoins, Dogecoin had fallen about 13% over the week, while the $TRUMP token was down more than 20%.

Despite Friday’s bounce, market sentiment toward cryptocurrencies remains cautious, with investors bracing for continued volatility amid uncertainty over U.S. monetary policy and broader global risk appetite.