Bitcoin bloodbath: Selloff sparks fears of new ‘crypto winter’ after weekend crash hits BTC, XRP, ETH, and others

To say it’s been a bad few days for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would be an understatement.

As of the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading in the range of $77,000 per coin—a price point not seen since last March, when the world was thrown into economic uncertainty by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

And Bitcoin isn’t the only crypto facing a bloodbath.

Other major tokens, including Ethereum and BNB (Binance) are also in free-fall. XRP, the closely watched native token of the XRP Ledger from Ripple Labs, dipped below $1.60 earlier on Monday, a level it hasn’t seen since 2024.

Here’s what you need to know.

Cryptocurrencies plunged over the weekend

Nearly all major cryptocurrencies plunged this weekend, with the tokens seeing drastic selloffs, particularly on Saturday.

But things are even worse when you look back over the past five days. As of the time of this writing, during that period, many major cryptos have suffered double-digit percentage declines, including:

• Bitcoin: down nearly 13% over the past five days to $77,843
• Ethereum: down nearly 24% over the past five days to $2,293
• BNB: down more than 15% over the past five days to $764
• XRP: down nearly 15% over the past five days to $1.62

And those aren’t the only cryptocurrencies getting hammered—most major coins are, including Solana (down almost 18% over the past 5 days to $102.88) and memecoin Dogecoin (down more than 15% over the past five days to $0.104.)

The dramatic fall of major cryptocurrencies have led to fears of a new “crypto winter,” a period when cryptocurrencies across the board see steep selloffs and new investors tend to shy away from adding the coins to their asset portfolios. The last major crypto winter occurred around 2022.

Why are cryptocurrency prices sinking?

It’s not possible to attribute the exact reason why a volatile asset class like cryptocurrencies rises or falls, as so much of crypto investor activity is driven by greed and fear, which fuel buy-and-sell cycles.

However, you can look back over the past five days to when the precipitous drops began and correlate the crypto price declines with external geopolitical and economic news, which is likely contributing to the outflow of investment in digital tokens.

The first happened on Friday when President Donald Trump announced that he would nominate former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve. That news caused the dollar to surge—and safe-haven assets like gold and silver to crash.

Since most cryptocurrencies are bought and sold against the dollar, when the dollar grows stronger, it takes fewer of them to buy the same amount of cryptocurrencies, and some investors may choose to sell their tokens before the dollar’s rising buying power makes their digital assets look any cheaper.

Meanwhile, news on the geopolitical front may have also played a role in the crypto selloff. Over the weekend, the U.S. military began moving forces and equipment into the Middle East after President Trump said he is considering a strike on Iran.

The potential strike is in response to recent widespread demonstrations in the country, which could signal a strong enough appetite for regime change—something Trump would likely consider very appealing, especially after the president ordered the attack on Venezuela at the beginning of the year to oust its leader.

Any potential conflict can be good for the U.S. dollar, but it will also serve to raise geopolitical uncertainty.

Investors generally hate uncertainty, and when such conditions arise, they typically dump their more volatile assets so they can park their profits in ones that are more stable. 

Where does crypto go from here?

It is still too early to tell whether the recent cryptocurrency decline over the past five days is a temporary event or is indeed the beginning of another long crypto winter.

The good news for investors is that many tokens are already showing signs of a slight recovery as of Monday morning, with Bitcoin up 1.21%, ETH up 1.41%, and XRP up 3.12% over the last 24 hours as of this writing.