Bitcoin fell below 90,000 dollars on Tuesday for the first time in nearly seven months before recovering slightly, as uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path and caution tied to delayed U.S. economic data reduced demand for high-risk assets.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was down 2.6% at 92,482 dollars as of 09:40 a.m. Eastern Time (14:40 GMT).
Bitcoin dropped to a 24-hour low of 89,409 dollars, leaving it nearly 30% below its late-October peak above 126,000 dollars.
The decline accelerated after the digital asset failed to hold support around 94,000 dollars, triggering what is known as a “death cross” between short- and long-term moving averages.
The U.S. government reopened last week after the longest shutdown in its history, and analysts say the next round of macro data will be crucial in shaping investor sentiment.
Iliya Katchaev, analyst at Nexo Dispatch, told Investing.com: “If inflation and labor data show further cooling, we may see a short-term rebound; but if not, markets are likely to stay in tight ranges dominated by flows into the weekend.”
Rate-cut doubts spark a wave of risk aversion
Investors have become increasingly doubtful that the Federal Reserve will cut rates in December. Fed officials — including Chair Jerome Powell — have signaled hesitation toward further easing, leaving markets uncertain about the central bank’s next move.
Caution also prevailed due to the lack of fresh data after weeks of delays caused by the recent government shutdown.
This backlog is expected to begin clearing this week, starting with the delayed September nonfarm payrolls report due Thursday.
Additional pressure: slower Bitcoin ETF flows and liquidation waves
Weak inflows into spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds contributed to the sell-off, as institutional investors stepped back amid rising volatility.
Shares of crypto-linked firms and mining companies also fell sharply, intensifying risk aversion across the digital-asset sector.
The decline followed several massive liquidation waves in crypto derivatives markets, where leveraged positions worth billions were wiped out.
Major analytics firms reported that earlier this month, more than 19 billion dollars in positions were liquidated within just 24 hours, triggering forced selling.
Bitcoin last traded below 90,000 dollars in late April. Its return to these levels highlights how quickly investor confidence has deteriorated as markets reassess geopolitical risks and the timing of U.S. rate cuts.
Crypto platforms disrupted after major Cloudflare outage
Cloudflare suffered a major network outage on Tuesday that knocked out front-end services for a broad range of cryptocurrency platforms and major websites. Millions of applications rely on the company’s infrastructure for security, routing, and edge computing.
Among the affected platforms were Coinbase and Kraken, in addition to major non-crypto services such as ChatGPT, Spotify, and X.
Cloudflare acknowledged the issue around 11:48 a.m. UTC on its status page, describing it as “an internal service degradation.” The company later said it had identified the cause and was deploying a fix.
The outage coincided with scheduled maintenance at several of the company’s data centers, though Cloudflare did not confirm any link and provided no further details.
Crypto prices today: broad altcoin declines
Most altcoins posted sharp losses on Friday amid broader risk-off sentiment.
Ethereum — the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency — fell 2.5% to 3,074.07 dollars.
Ripple, the third-largest token, declined 4.4% to 2.18 dollars.
