Bitcoin's First-Half Blues: Two Red Quarters in a Row, and the Altcoins Are Singing the Chorus Louder 📉

Bitcoin slipped below $60,000 over the weekend, trading around $59,940 on Sunday, down 0.6% over 24 hours and nearly 7% on the week, per CoinDesk data, capping a first half of 2026 that has produced two consecutive losing quarters for the largest cryptocurrency. The token is on track to finish the second quarter down about 12%, after a roughly 22% drop in the first quarter, according to data from Coinglass, a back-to-back decline that has only happened twice in BTC's history and breaks from a second quarter that has historically averaged gains over the past decade. Ether has fared worse, down about 25% in the second quarter following a 29% first-quarter fall.

The selling pressure spread broadly across major altcoins. Ether fell 9.5% on the week to about $1,567, dogecoin dropped 11.7% to $0.073, Hyperliquid's HYPE lost 10.6%, and XRP slid 8.7% to $1.04. Solana proved more resilient at $70, off 3.5% on the week, while tron was the steadiest, down 1.5%. The pressure extended to derivatives markets, with centralized exchanges liquidating nearly $1 billion in crypto futures positions within 24 hours as bitcoin dipped below $59,100 on Wednesday, the bulk coming from long positions. CoinGlass data showed 217,685 traders liquidated over the period totaling $1.48 billion, including a single BTC-USD position worth $38.05 million wiped out on Hyperliquid. As bitcoin fell to around $59,100, the number of coins held at a loss climbed to a record 10.83 million BTC, according to Glassnode, exceeding the previous peak of 10.78 million set in early June. Long-term holders now control a record 14.8 million BTC, roughly 75% of the 20 million in circulation, with 37% of their holdings in the red.

The selloff was driven by a combination of sustained ETF outflows, a hawkish shift from the Federal Reserve under new Chair Kevin Warsh, and a rotation of capital into semiconductor and AI-related equities. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $469.08 million in net outflows on June 24 alone, according to SoSoValue, extending a six-week streak of withdrawals totaling about $6 billion, with total net assets across the products falling to $73.87 billion. Deutsche Bank analyst Marion Laboure said in a Tuesday report that the institutional thesis underpinning bitcoin throughout 2024 and 2025 had been built on expectations of an interest rate reduction cycle, and that the reversal of those expectations has caused BTC to behave more like a liquidity-sensitive risk asset. The bank now expects the Fed to raise rates twice in 2026, and BofA economists have projected three hikes this year lifting the target range to 4.25%–4.5% by year-end. With traders pricing in a rate hike to a target range of 3.75%–4% in July, "if people think that we're going into a hawkish environment, that can certainly hurt near-term prices for crypto and other risk assets," Gerry O'Shea, head of global market insights at Hashdex, told Decrypt.

The same AI trade that pulled crypto lower staged a sharp rebound midweek. Micron, the largest U.S. maker of memory chips, jumped about 15% after its sales forecast exceeded Wall Street estimates, lifting Nasdaq 100 futures 1.8% and sending South Korea's Kospi up as much as 6%. Bitcoin failed to follow, however, with Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, noting in an email to CoinDesk that the break below $60,000 reflected outflows, the Fed's hawkish turn and a U.S. dollar that climbed to a seven-month high of 101.15 on the DXY. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, released Thursday, rose 4.1% year-over-year in May, a three-year high, with core PCE up 3.4% year-over-year and 0.3% on the month. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 7.9% on Tuesday, with all 30 members declining, and Brent crude slid toward $76 a barrel as tanker traffic resumed through the Strait of Hormuz following the U.S.–Iran interim peace deal.

Market participants are watching several technical signals and macro catalysts in the days ahead. Bitcoin is hovering near its 200-week moving average, a level that has marked prior cycle bottoms and below which the asset spent months in 2022 before its recovery. Mike McCluskey, co-founder of tx, described bitcoin's stabilization in the low-to-mid $60,000s as a measured response to the Fed's hawkish turn, and said that until ETF flows clearly reverse, "relief rallies are likely to hit a hard ceiling." Traders are also monitoring an upcoming $10.6 billion options expiry, the June U.S. jobs report on July 2, and the consumer price index on July 14. "Days like today are undoubtedly painful," Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at Bitwise, told Decrypt. "But step back. We've seen this movie before."