Bitcoin Hits a 21-Month Low as Spot ETFs Shed $696.3 Million

Bitcoin fell to a 21-month low on Thursday, printing near $58,000 intraday before recovering to roughly $59,460, down 2.6% on the day and 6.6% on the week. That made it the lowest level since September 2024 and the weakest of 2026 so far. In 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 those expiring positions as a source of further selling pressure.

A level last seen in September 2024

Where the low actually sat depends on the screen. Reported prints ranged from $58,035 to $58,131 across venues, and we could not pin the print to a single feed. The spread matters less than what it covers: 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%.

Flows: $696.3 million out in one session

The ETF complex sold into the low instead of stepping in to buy it. Thursday's $696.3 million redemption was the heaviest single day of June, after $113.8 million left on Tuesday and $469.1 million on Wednesday, in the flow tally TFTC compiled. Days earlier the pressure had looked to be easing. CoinDesk had put the week to June 22 at $228 million leaving the funds, the sixth consecutive weekly outflow but the first under $1 billion in five, bringing the streak to $5.94 billion. Thursday 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.

XRP at a yearly low of $1.03

Bitcoin's 2.6% decline was the mildest among the major assets, typical of a session in which liquidity concentrates in the largest name. The day's moves:

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 cycle's damage 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 $10 billion expiry lands on 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 due to expire on Friday. That size matters less for the directional bets it contains than for the hedging attached to them. Market makers who sold those contracts hold offsetting positions in spot and futures, and as expiry approaches those hedges get 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, not a cushion under it.