Bitcoin drops as Nasdaq slips into $17T market rout

Crypto-related stocks fell as a broader selloff in US equities pushed risk assets lower and dragged bitcoin below US$66,000.

Coinbase and Galaxy fell nearly 7%, Gemini dropped almost 9%, and Robinhood lost about 6%, while Strategy and Twenty One Capital were down roughly 6% and Ethereum-focused treasury names Bitmine Immersion and Sharplink Gaming fell about 5%.

Crypto miners including Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, IREN, HIVE Digital, Hut 8, MARA, and Bitdeer declined about 5% to 8% amid a broader risk-off move as markets weighed higher oil prices and softer labor signals alongside comments from Federal Reserve officials.

The report also said the Nasdaq 100 is more than 10% below its January high and that about US$17 trillion in market value has been wiped from peak levels across the Magnificent Seven, gold, silver, and bitcoin.

🔗 Source: CoinDesk

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

These companies are built to magnify bitcoin swings

Several of these stocks trade like leveraged bets on digital assets, which helps explain the sharp drops.
Strategy is a Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) company, a public company that holds large amounts of bitcoin on its balance sheet. Its Bitcoin beta is 1.34, so the stock moves 1.34% for every 1% move in bitcoin 1.
In sell-offs, Strategy has historically fallen about 1.6 times as much as bitcoin 1.
Debt adds to the swings. Strategy has raised over $6 billion through convertible notes, while miners such as MARA Holdings have also issued debt to fund growth and buy bitcoin 2.

Debt-backed expansion raises odds of forced sales

Heavy borrowing by miners and treasury firms adds risk beyond share prices.
In a slump, miners with debt payments above operating profit may need to sell bitcoin to stay solvent, which can add selling pressure 3.
The backdrop includes record leverage. Total crypto-collateralized lending reached $73.59 billion at the end of Q3 2025 4.
A slide could spark a feedback loop, with liquidations echoing a past episode when more than $19 billion in perpetual futures were liquidated in 24 hours 4.