Bitcoin loses $60,000 support: 3 reasons why it happened (and what may come next)

1. The AI rout that dragged BTC

For weeks, headlines covered how the AI trade was siphoning capital away from BTC. On June 24, the dynamic turned: AI stocks fell and BTC fell with them.

The selloff had been building since Broadcom's guidance miss on June 3, when the chipmaker failed to meet earnings expectations in its second quarter report.

It seeded doubt about whether AI infrastructure spending could continue to meet the market's ever-rising expectations.

By June 23 to 24, South Korea's KOSPI — up 95% year-to-date heading into the session — triggered circuit breakers twice as SK Hynix and Samsung each fell more than 12%, dragging the index down roughly 10%. 

For major indexes, the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.3%, the S&P 500 shed 2.5%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 8%. 

Micron lost 13%, Nvidia fell 6%, and the VIX jumped roughly 33% to 20.44. BTC closed near $59,369 on June 24, down roughly 5% on the day.

A sell-everything session: Gold and silver didn't escape either

The June 24 deleveraging caught on to the ‘safe havens’. Gold dropped roughly 3.1% to around $4,002 an ounce. Silver lost approximately 8.1% on the day. WTI crude fell 4.2% to $70.11 a barrel. 

The US dollar strengthened as investors sought liquidity over yield, with Treasury yields falling 6 to 9 basis points in a flight-to-safety move that bypassed both commodities and crypto alike. 

When gold and silver sell off alongside BTC in the same session, it points to an unwinding of leveraged risk positions across the book.

2. The Strategy 'feedback loop'

Bloomberg's June 24 coverage noted: "Bitcoin's slide back below $60,000 is reviving a fear largely absent from crypto for the past two years — what happens when the market's biggest buyer comes under pressure."

Strategy holds 847,363 BTC acquired at an average cost basis of roughly $75,699 per token. With BTC trading around $60,000, those holdings are underwater. The company carries $8.2 billion in total debt, pays $888 million a year in preferred dividends, and faces a $6 billion debt refinancing in 2028.

It was widely reported that market sentiments swung negatively following Strategy’s disclosure that it sold 32 BTC — its first sale in four years — to fund distributions on its STRC preferred stock. The STRC plummeted to a low of $88.50 this past week; the perpetual preferred share, which is designed to offer BTC yields, saw a severe selloff.

Strategy’s Executive Chairman Michael Saylor defended the balance sheet on June 21, stating Strategy's combined BTC and cash holdings exceed outstanding debt by roughly $48 billion. However, the risk is not the 32 sold BTC, which makes up just 0.04% of the treasury. It’s more on the ‘feedback loop’: lower BTC prices increase pressure on the balance sheet, which could require further sales, which in turn weighs on price. 

Saylor has previously suggested BTC might trade in the $40,000 to $50,000 range without Strategy's weekly buying providing consistent demand absorption.

3. BofA's three-hike forecast

On June 22, Bank of America economists published a note reversing their prior forecast, calling for three consecutive 25bp rate hikes in September, October and December 2026, lifting the federal funds rate from its current 3.50% to 3.75% to 4.25% to 4.50%. 

The bank cited inflation data it described as "unambiguously worse" and the hawkish tone of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's June 17 FOMC debut as the basis for the reversal.

The forecast isn’t consensus. Goldman Sachs pushed rate cut expectations to 2027 without forecasting hikes. 

JPMorgan expects the Fed to hold through 2026. But in a market already fragile from six weeks of ETF outflows and a broken $60,000 support, even a minority forecast of three hikes was enough to reset rate expectations upward. 

CME FedWatch shows December hike odds at approximately 37%. Thursday's PCE print — the Fed's preferred inflation gauge — is the next hard data point: a hot reading validates BofA's scenario; a soft one may ease it.

Bitcoin price: Levels to watch

What sets this decelerating event apart from the previous $60,000 tests this month is the reaction from BTC’s TradFi counterparts. The past two weeks appeared to be demand vacuum events, where BTC’s price held but buyers were absent. 

BTC may be veering into a contagion event instead; it moved together with AI and chip stocks, commodities, global indices and oil in a single session.

21Shares, in their mid-year State of Crypto report, noted that the 53% reduction from October's all-time high remains shallower than the 84% seen in 2017 and the 77% seen in 2021. The firm still expects recovery toward $100,000 by year-end, on the basis of $53 billion in cumulative net ETF inflows since 2024. 

Whether that recovery path is viable in the short-term may hinge on Thursday's PCE print and the next pivot of the AI trade.

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