Bitcoin currently trades at $64,059, down slightly over 24 hours. Prices have gone down since January, weakening the side of the crypto market. Which is caused mostly by US-Iran tensions, which now take the shape of war; heavy ETF selling, and major holders like Strategy pausing purchases. The three key forces behind this downturn of the overall crypto market.
The number one cryptocurrency by its market cap, Bitcoin also referred to as BTC. BTC's current value at the time of publishing this article is $64,059, declining in price in the last 24 hours by 0.09%.
The weekly surge in prices is around 0.16%. The market cap of bitcoin is $1.28 trillion, decreased by 0.06%. The 24-hour trading volume is $27.9 billion, a rise of 5.34%.
The greed and fear index is red. Showing it 33. That means the percent chance of fear is more than 50%. But much better than last week, which was around 26. The monthly greed and fear index is 25.
As from the start of the year, Bitcoin and overall market prices went down. A big shake in the crypto industry, which resulted in prices dropping. But there are some main reasons highlighted that have played a key role in the price decline of the whole crypto market. They are listed below as:
The Iran and the US conflict is basically the biggest reason behind the whole crypto market price change. From the start of the year 2026, Iran and the US have been in a huge conflict with each other. Iran demands an exchange of toll of Strait of Hormuz with BTC.
This resulted in the shape of a war. When there is news related to war, the tension automatically rises among investors. Investors get scared and take money out of anything risky, including crypto.
Just hold their cash instead of investing, and wait for the calm. Even gold, usually known as a safe asset, moved down with crypto. People are just running to cash and not switching between investments.
On the other side of the market, ETFs, exchange-traded funds, started selling their holdings. Big investment funds that buy Bitcoin and other coins for people are called ETFs.
Main examples of ETFs are BlackRock and Fidelity. They had been buying a huge amount of cryptocurrencies for the past couple of years. Recently, they started selling instead.
This clearly means that less buying by investors results in less purchasing or selling. Selling is also a reason for prices to fall. Most experts say this is the big reason why crypto prices are going down.
Regular people, like a big bitcoin-accumulating company, stop buying bitcoin. In past crypto periods, everyday people were buying in a big way. This indirectly helped push prices up.
Regularly buying and selling actually helps a lot with the price moves of a coin. The big shark, Strategy, is the number one Bitcoin holding company till now. Accumulated around 843,775 BTC in their holding till now.
For the last two weeks, they have stopped purchasing bitcoin. Instead of this, they are selling, which increases the pressure and creates a warm sentiment in the overall market.
What’s Really Driving the 2026 Crypto Sell-Off? A Breakdown of the Causes was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
