Bitcoin smashed through the $90,000 floor on November 18, 2025, wiping out every ounce of its 2025 gains and dragging the entire crypto market into freefall. The flagship cryptocurrency bottomed at $89,286 during European trading before clawing back to around $91,300 by midday UTC — still down 5% in 24 hours and a brutal 28% from its October all-time high of $126,250. Total crypto market cap has vaporized more than $1.2 trillion in six weeks, now sitting at $3.17 trillion while the Fear & Greed Index screams “extreme fear” at a score of 10 — the lowest since February.

This isn’t just a crypto meltdown — it’s Wall Street contagion in digital form. The Dow plunged over 550 points yesterday as Nvidia, Apple, and Salesforce led a savage tech rout, pushing the Nasdaq toward correction territory. Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 has spiked to 0.92 over the past month, turning the original “digital gold” into a turbo-charged risk asset that gets punished harder and faster than stocks.

Institutional money is sprinting for the exits. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their third consecutive week of outflows totaling $2 billion, with even BlackRock’s giant iShares fund bleeding heavily. Leverage is being unwound at lightning speed: over $1.1 billion in long positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours alone, the highest single-day wipeout since the FTX collapse.

Analysts point to a toxic cocktail of macro triggers:

• Fed rate-cut odds for December have collapsed from 90% to just 40%
• U.S. Treasury yields are spiking as inflation refuses to die
• Trump’s incoming tariff threats are stoking fresh uncertainty

Layer-2 tokens and altcoins are getting obliterated even worse — Ethereum -7%, Solana -9%, and meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu down double digits. Mining stocks (MARA, Riot, CleanSpark) cratered 12–18% in sympathy.

Yet some whales are already buying the dip. On-chain data shows wallets holding 1,000+ BTC have accumulated over 12,000 coins in the past week — their fastest pace since March. Long-term holders (coins unmoved for over a year) now control 77% of supply, the highest level in four years.

Bottom line: this feels like the final capitulation shakeout before the next leg. History shows Bitcoin’s worst drawdowns (-25% or more) have preceded its biggest rallies 80% of the time. But until the Nasdaq stabilizes and rate-cut hopes return, expect more pain.

Risk-tolerant buyers are stacking sats under $90K. Everyone else? Cash might be king for a few more days.