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The world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has suffered its first monthly loss since 2018, bringing to an end a seven-year unbroken growth streak.
The currency lost 5% of its value over October, due to market instability and reduced risk appetite among investors.
Cryptocurrencies “came into October, tracking gold, tracking stocks near all-time highs, and then as uncertainty hit people for the first time maybe this year, they didn’t rotate back into bitcoin en masse,” said Adam McCarthy, a senior research analyst at digital market data provider Kaiko.
October witnessed the largest liquidation of crypto assets in history, after President Trump announced a fresh 100% tariff on Chinese imports and threatened to unleash export controls on critical software.
Bitcoin fell to $104,782.88 from a high of more than $126,000 a few days earlier.
Experts are warning of a significant correction in the US stock market in the next six months to two years.
“Participants remain hesitant as they process what has become the largest liquidation event on record. This caution persists amid ongoing speculation about specific vulnerabilities that may still exist in the system,” said Jake Ostrovskis, of trading firm Wintermute.
Despite suffering its first monthly loss for seven years, the value of Bitcoin is still up 16% since the start of the year.
During his campaign, President Trump promised to set digital assets free and create a favourable environment for investment in them.
He promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and build a national stockpile of Bitcoin.
The crypto industry spent nearly $120 million backing pro-crypto candidates in the election. That campaign was largely a success, and saw the unseating of avowed enemies of crypto like Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and wins for pro-crypto candidates in Michigan, West Virginia, Indiana, Alabama and North Carolina.
