Crypto's having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month, and it could get worse before it gets better, experts said.

Cryptocurrencies have cratered this month, losing more than $1 trillion in value in recent weeks. Bitcoin's dropped to the lowest level since April and is on track for its worst month since 2022. It's down more than 33% from its all-time high above $126,000 in early October, which officially pushes the digital unit into bear market territory defined as at least 20% lower than the record high.

Bitcoin's now down about 10% this year, and likely will see more selling which could mean its first annual loss since 2022, experts said. At 1:29 p.m. ET, Bitcoin was down 3.18% at $83,776.81.

"It seems early in the selloff process," said Hyunsu Jung, chief executive of publicly traded crypto-treasury company Hyperion DeFi.

Why is crypto, including Bitcoin, crashing?

A whirlwind of factors have contributed to crypto's downfall, analysts said. Cryptocurrency tends to trade in line with the riskier growth stocks like in artficial intelligence and technology, which also have been battered lately amid high valuation worries and an uncertain economy.

"It would be difficult to attribute selling to a single factor," Jung said. "The current state of the market is risk assets across equities and crypto both seeing pullbacks - due to multiple factors such as: potential exhaustion of the AI trade."

Global interest rate uncertainty and moves to cash by corporate digital asset treasuries and other large crypto holders like investment firm Blackrock are also weighing on crypto, Jung said.

How initial selling turned into a frenzy

That initial sell-off pushed cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin through several technical support levels on price charts that triggered a cascade of sales among trend followers, exacerbating the decline.

Specifically, key signals that prompted more selling according to Tom Essaye, founder and president of Sevens Report Research, include:

  • In October when Bitcoin rose, the relative strength index (RSI) that measures the strength of a price move didn't move up with the digital currency and continue to point to more downside.
  • Bitcoin broke through key support level at $106,000, spurring more sales in very high volume. Selling was "not so much due to short-term traders but long-term investors exiting the market," he said. "That trend of high-volume on down days has persisted through today, with the 4.4% drop occurring on some of the highest volumes" in the second half of 2025.

What does this mean for investors?

The sharp decline could force even more sales, some analysts warned. It's "reawakened concerns about a further wave of forced selling, amid worries that retail investors might need to liquidate other assets to meet margin calls," Deutsche Bank economist Jim Reid said. A margin call is when a brokerage demands an investor deposit more money or securities to cover a shortfall that happens amid a sharp price decline.

Once the dust settles - and no one can say yet when that might be - investors with iron stomachs may want to tip toe in, some experts said.

After sifting through corporate 13Fs, or a required Securities and Exchange Commission form for institutional investment managers who oversee at least $100 million in assets under management, LPL Financial's portfolio strategist George Smith found "a large increase in cryptocurrency-related products and blockchain mining firms (underscoring) the growing institutional appetite for digital assets."

That could bode well for cryptocurrency because institutional investors are often considered "smart money."

Again,"no one should ever invest beyond their risk tolerance," said David Namdar, chief executive of CEA Industries, the largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency Binance Coin. "But historically, moments like this, when sentiment is low and volatility is high, have often been where long-term value is created. Anyone considering an investment should think in years, not days, and should understand the asset’s inherent volatility."

Medora Lee is a money, markets and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@usatoday.com and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why crypto's having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month

Reporting by Medora Lee, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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