Cryptocurrencies were caught in a broad flight from risk assets on Friday, November 21, 2025, sending bitcoin and ether to multi-month lows.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, fell 2.1%, breaking below $86,000 to hit a seven-month trough of $85,350.75 in Asian trading.
Ether also slid more than 2% to its lowest in four months at $2,777.39.
Both tokens were staring at weekly losses of roughly 8%.
Cryptocurrencies are often used by investors as a barometer of risk appetite and the sharp slide shows how fragile the mood in the market has turned in recent days, with high-flying artificial intelligence stocks tumbling and volatility spiking.
“If it’s telling a story about risk sentiment as a whole, then things could start to get really, really ugly, and that’s the concern now,” Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG, said of the fall in bitcoin.
About $1.2 trillion has been wiped off the total market value of all cryptocurrencies in the past six weeks, according to market tracker CoinGecko.
Prices of Hong Kong-listed spot bitcoin ETFs launched by China AMC, Harvest, and Bosera fell close to 7% each on Friday.
The slide in bitcoin has come hard and fast following a stellar run this year that propelled it to a record high above $120,000 in October, buoyed by favourable regulatory changes towards crypto assets globally.
Analysts say the market remains scarred by a record crypto crash last month, which saw more than $19 billion in liquidations across leveraged positions as panic selling and low liquidity triggered sharp swings.
“The market feels a little bit dislocated, a bit fractured, a bit broken, really, since we had that selloff,” Sycamore told Reuters.
Bitcoin has since erased all its year-to-date gains and is now down 8% for the year, while ether has lost close to 16%.
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