Bitcoin price held a precarious position near $65,000 on Wednesday, down nearly 12% in the past seven days and trading at its lowest level since February as a broader rotation out of the crypto led to speculative trading competing at the base of its recent bull run.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency touched bitcoin’s $64,987 price early in the session before partially recovering, but analysts and strategists say the weakness runs deeper than any single catalyst.
The most popular explanation – that Strategy’s (MSTR) first bitcoin sale in four years caused the slide – is disputed by a growing chorus of voices in the market.
Charles Schwab director of digital currency research and strategy Jim Ferraioli that the issue is in simple words: bitcoin is losing its status as a trading power in the market.
“Bitcoin has been in a bear market since October,” Ferraioli said according to a CoinDesk report. “We lack a reason to shop here when there are other things to choose from.”
The broader view in the bitcoin space is that the asset class is facing a competition problem, not a confidence problem.
Capital once poured into crypto seeking a high-octane return is swirling toward artificial intelligence stocks, gold, and a wave of high-profile IPOs from private tech firms including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Those offerings represent some of the most anticipated market events of the year, and investors appear to be shelling out cash to participate.
Wall Street bank Citi echoed similar structural concerns on Wednesday. Analyst Alex Saunders estimated that the flow of the Spot bitcoin ETF accounts for about 45% of the weekly BTC price variation – a clear real-time measure of investor demand.
That flow has turned negative. Saunders also flagged the diminishing prospects for the Clarity Act, the US crypto market structure bill that many in the industry have viewed as a potential trigger for new institutional inflows.
Despite that regulatory deadline, the bank sees sentiment remaining muted.
The strategy of selling 32 BTC for about 2.5 million dollars in late May made the markets rescuing. The transaction marked a rare departure from Executive Chairman Michael Saylor’s longtime “buy and hold” stance and raised concerns that one of bitcoin’s most prominent business backers may be shifting from a buyer to a seller.
The strategy cited a move to a tax-advancement plan that was revealed during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.
Citi said the sale was expected and does not change the firm’s broader strategy. Ferraioli described it as a simple narrative attached to an already occurring trend, noting that many ETF investors sitting near the breakeven are treating the current price level as an exit opportunity rather than a buying opportunity.
Is the US-Iran conflict causing the bitcoin price to rise?
Another theory gaining traction in analyst circles points to US sanctions on Iran’s digital assets system as a source of continued sales pressure.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a freeze on more than $1 billion in crypto assets last week, and the US sanctioned Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, on Tuesday for alleged ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
From a technical point of view, the price of bitcoin at $65,000 level is important. This rate is a year-to-date decline of approximately $60,000. Bitcoin Magazine Pro the data points to the first support in the $ 63,000-$64,000 price range of bitcoin , where bids appeared in February and March, with a bitcoin price of $ 60,000 representing the next psychological bottom and $ 58,000 above that.
This marks the third test of the bitcoin price of the February 6 panic low. The previous two – on February 24 and March 29 – produced a sharp recovery above $70,000. Seasonal weakness, concentrated in the summer months, gives the bulls immediate relief.
As AI assets become more efficient, IPO pipelines take on speculative capital, and regulatory incentives diminish, bitcoin’s path back to momentum-driven price discovery depends on the return of investor attention — and right now, that attention is directed elsewhere.
At the time of writing the price of bitcoin is close to $65,300.
