The price of Bitcoin plunged on Thursday, taking its value below $66,000, its lowest level since before the US elections of November 2024, a key event that had spurred exuberance in the market on the expectation of more relaxed rules around cryptocurrencies.

Those gains were erased as of Thursday’s slide, as some analysts said various factors, including a sell-off in software shares, were likely to keep pushing prices lower.

Analysts compared the current trough in cryptocurrencies to that of 2022 to 2023, which followed several major bankruptcies in the market that were followed by high-profile trials and jail time for some of those involved.

The global market for digital assets has lost more than $2 trillion (£1.5tn) since a peak of $4.379tn in early October, losing about $800bn in the past month alone, according to CoinGecko data.

Matt Houghan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, said the sell-off was fuelled by factors including excess leverage and widespread profit-taking by long-time Bitcoin investors.

He said the current situation appears like a “crypto winter” that was “2022-like”.

Other factors cited by analysts included the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next US Federal Reserve chair, whom some fear could implement policies that reduce support for speculative assets such as Bitcoin, and lingering psychological fallout from a record-breaking slump in October when leveraged positions were washed out.

Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note to clients that the broader decline could be mainly fuelled by massive withdrawals from institutional exchange-traded funds that track crypto prices, which they said have seen billions of dollars of outflows each month since October 2025.

“This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing interest and overall pessimism about crypto is growing,” the analysts said.