Bitcoin Hits a 21-Month Low as Spot ETFs Shed $696.3 Million
Bitcoin fell to a 21-month low on Thursday, trading down to an intraday print of about $58,000 before recovering to roughly $59,460, a decline of 2.6% on the day and 6.6% on the week. The level was the lowest since September 2024 and the weakest of 2026 so far. On the same session, US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded net redemptions of $696.3 million, the largest single-day outflow of the month, and about $10 billion of bitcoin options on Deribit were set to expire the following day. Forbes, which reported the low, framed the expiring positions as a source of further selling pressure.
The Print: A Level Last Seen in September 2024
Price feeds differed slightly on where the low actually sat, with reported prints ranging from $58,035 to $58,131 depending on the venue sampled. The distinction matters less than what the range represents: a price bitcoin has not traded at since September 2024, and the floor of the current year. Measured from the all-time high of $126,198.07 set on Oct. 6, 2025, Thursday's low left the asset roughly 54% below its cycle peak. The recovery to about $59,460 by the close returned only part of the day's move and kept the week's loss at 6.6%.
The Flows: $696.3 Million Out in a Single Session
The ETF complex accelerated its selling into the low rather than stepping into it. The $696.3 million redeemed on Thursday was the heaviest single day of June, and it followed outflows of $113.8 million on Tuesday and $469.1 million on Wednesday, according to flow data compiled by TFTC. Weekly redemptions had appeared to be easing only days earlier: CoinDesk reported that the week to June 22 saw $228 million leave the funds, the sixth consecutive week of outflows but the first under $1 billion in five, bringing the cumulative streak to $5.94 billion. Thursday's figure ended that reading. The funds have been the largest structural source of spot demand for bitcoin over the past two years, and a $696.3 million redemption day means that source was a net seller at the year's lowest prices.
Across the Market: XRP at a Yearly Low of $1.03
Bitcoin's 2.6% decline was the mildest among the major assets, which is characteristic of a session in which liquidity concentrates in the largest name. The moves on the day were:
- Ether: down 9%.
- Dogecoin: down 12.6%.
- XRP: down 10.8%, at a yearly low of $1.03.
- Solana: down 6.5%.
- BNB: down 6%.
The cumulative effect across the cycle is easier to read at the index level. The total value of all cryptocurrencies has fallen from $4.28 trillion at the peak to around $2 trillion, erasing roughly $2.2 trillion. BlackRock's head of digital assets attributed the weakness to artificial-intelligence investment drawing capital away from bitcoin, a rotation into a competing asset class rather than a retreat from risk itself.
The Expiry: What $10 Billion of Contracts Does to a Thin Tape
An options expiry is the date on which outstanding contracts settle, and the hedges written against them are unwound, rolled or left to lapse. Around $10 billion of bitcoin options on Deribit were scheduled to expire on Friday, a size that matters less for the directional bets it contains than for the hedging activity attached to them. Market makers who sold those contracts hold offsetting positions in spot and futures, and as an expiry approaches those hedges are adjusted or closed, which adds flow to the underlying market independent of anyone's view on price. In a session where the largest ETF buyers redeemed $696.3 million and the tape was already making new lows for the year, that mechanical flow arrives into a book with less depth to absorb it. What Friday resolves is how much of the open interest was protection that expires worthless and how much was positioning that has to be replaced at lower strikes. Until the contracts clear, the market's own hedging is a variable in the price rather than a cushion under it.