Bitcoin Slides Below $70K Amidst Friday Crypto Selloff

Bitcoin (BTC) appeared poised to challenge its all-time high earlier on Friday but pulled back sharply, relinquishing most of its weekly gains. The broader cryptocurrency market experienced an even more significant selloff as speculative fever cooled. Despite spot bitcoin ETFs being on their largest accumulation streak since launch, this wasn’t sufficient to sustain a rally in prices.

What was expected to be a rally for bitcoin turned into a rapid retreat during U.S. trading on Friday, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency struggling to maintain a week-over-week gain. At press time, bitcoin was trading at $69,000, down 2.5% over the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH) fell by 4%, Tezos (XTZ) and EOS (EOS) by 10%, and Solana (SOL) by 7%.

Data from Coinglass revealed that the selloff led to $450 million in liquidations, the largest amount since a mid-April washout. Bitcoin challenged $72,000 earlier on Friday but began to decline in the U.S. morning hours following a stronger-than-expected government employment report for May, which added 272,000 jobs. This dampened hopes for an imminent interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, sending interest rates and the dollar higher.

The selloff in bitcoin and crypto intensified as Roaring Kitty held a highly anticipated YouTube livestream for the first time in several years. The trading legend may have disappointed those hoping for a major announcement, as he mainly expressed his hope that GameStop management could transform the company into something valuable in the coming years. Already declining, GME shares fell further during the broadcast, now down 40% for the session. The GME meme coin dropped 50% from highs reached earlier on Friday. Other meme coins also suffered, with dogecoin (DOGE) down 8%, shiba inu (SHIB) down 10%, and pepecoin (PEPE) down 15% over the past 24 hours.

Spot ETFs completed their 18th consecutive day of inflows on Thursday, a streak unmatched even during the frenzied price increases of February and March.