GM, Crypto Briefers!

Bitcoin just printed its worst drop since the FTX collapse, falling 15% in a single day and briefly breaking below $60K before snapping back to $70K. The week-long slide erased over $2.7B in liquidations and sent the crypto fear and greed index to single digits. 

While the plunge felt like a market-wide gut punch, many traders are already calling local bottom on the back of Friday’s bounce and potential ETF inflows, which could flip positive after nearly $700 million in weekly outflows. That bounce may prove temporary, but the speed and scale of the move echoed the industry’s ugliest days.

Meanwhile, Strategy just reported one of the largest quarterly losses ever posted by a US public company: $12.6 billion in Q4 alone, entirely due to unrealized losses on its Bitcoin stack. The firm’s 713K BTC position flipped from $31 billion in unrealized gains to $9.2 billion in losses in just four months. Still, CEO Phong Le says they’re not sweating unless Bitcoin drops to $8K and stays there for five years, and TD Cowen is still bullish on Strategy’s high-beta BTC exposure heading into 2026.

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Bitcoin drops 15% in a day, fear index hits 9

Bitcoin dropped nearly 15% in a single day on Thursday, briefly falling below $60K for the first time this cycle before rebounding to $70K by Friday morning. The drop marked BTC’s sharpest one-day fall since the FTX collapse in 2022 and capped a 23% drawdown from its recent $80K highs. 

Altcoins followed: ETH dropped to $1,750 before recovering to $1,980, SOL hit $67 and bounced to $83, and XRP fell to $1.12 before reclaiming $1.46. Over $2.7 billion in liquidations hit on Thursday, $2B of it in longs.

Fear and greed index collapsed to 9, flashing extreme fear, a zone that has historically aligned with local bottoms. BTC ETFs saw $424 million in outflows on Thursday, bringing weekly redemptions close to $700 million. However, some analysts on X pointed to a record $10 billion in daily trading volume for BlackRock’s IBIT ETF, suspecting that the spike may have been tied to distressed option activity. Theories circulated that a large entity trading IBIT options was potentially wiped out during the drawdown, contributing to the amplified volatility.

Strategy logs $12.6B loss in Q4 as BTC wipeout flips balance sheet red

Strategy posted a net Q4 loss of $12.6 billion, one of the largest quarterly losses ever reported by a US public company. The pain stemmed almost entirely from unrealized losses on its 713,502 BTC position, which flipped from $31 billion in paper gains to a $9.2 billion unrealized loss amid Bitcoin’s rapid decline. 

The firm’s average acquisition price remains around $76K. MSTR stock dropped 17% during the crypto selloff, and has now lost over 70% from its peak a year ago. Despite the bloodbath, CEO Phong Le said Bitcoin would have to fall to $8K and stay there for years before threatening debt repayments. 

TD Cowen analysts backed Strategy’s long-term setup, maintaining a $440 price target and BTC projections of $177K by late 2026. Volatility, they argued, is by design, Strategy is a leveraged bet on BTC, and the market is acting exactly as expected.

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