Bitcoin Slides To 15-Month Low As Institutional Support Evaporates

Bitcoin slid below $73,000 as Wall Street opened on 4 Feb, testing a critical support level as selling pressure intensified during US trading hours. The cryptocurrency is currently trading at its weakest level since November 2024, effectively erasing the gains made during the late-2025 regulatory optimism.

The fresh dip suggests that buyers are no longer willing to defend key psychological levels with conviction. According to the latest CryptoQuant Weekly Report, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have become net sellers in 2026, offloading approximately 15,000 BTC. This represents a massive shift from the same period in 2025, when ETFs were net buyers of 47,000 BTC, a demand gap of more than 60,000 BTC that the broader market is struggling to absorb.

While the headline price of Bitcoin held up for much of last year, some analysts argue that the market has been in a "full-blown winter" since early 2025. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated in a memo to clients on 3 Feb that the record-breaking inflows into ETFs and digital asset treasuries over the last 12 months effectively masked a deeper bear market.

"Strong demand through US spot ETFs helped cushion prices, keeping the downturn from looking worse," Hougan noted, estimating that these vehicles purchased over 744,000 BTC during the cycle. Without that support, he suggests Bitcoin’s drawdown from its $126,000 October peak could have been closer to 60% rather than the current 39%.

The technical outlook remains equally grim. Bitcoin has declined 23% since crossing below its 365-day moving average on 12 Nov 2025. This performance is notably worse than the start of the 2022 bear market, when prices had declined by only 6% over a similar 83-day window.

The Coinbase Premium Index, a key proxy for US investor demand, has remained in negative territory for much of the year, signaling that American participants are leading the selloff rather than buying the dip. Compounding this is a contraction in stablecoin liquidity; supply growth has turned negative on a 60-day basis, removing the "dry powder" typically used to stabilize the market during periods of stress.

With the next major support zone sitting between $60,000 and $70,000, the market appears to be searching for a floor that the "institutional trade" can no longer provide. If Hougan’s assessment holds, this winter will only end once the excess leverage of the 2025 rally is fully purged from the system.

'Big Short' Burry's 'death spiral' prediction

Michael Burry, famous for betting against the US housing market before the 2008 financial crisis in a strategy documented in book and film as 'The Big Short', offered deeper pessimism in his Cassandra Unchained substack earlier this week. Bitcoin has shown it's a speculative asset that may enter a "death spiral," the veteran investor noted, predicting "sickening scenarios" for digital asset treasuries and miners that depend on its value increasing.