Bitcoin Plunges Toward $74,600 as Tech Selloff Signals Deeper Market Trouble

$75,000. That's where Bitcoin landed Tuesday afternoon, just a few hundred dollars above its weekend low. But this isn't just another crypto dip—it's part of a broader market rout that's raising uncomfortable questions about the economy's true health.

When Everything Falls Together

Bitcoin's 5% slide to $75,000 was matched by even steeper drops elsewhere. Ethereum tumbled 6.5% to near $2,200, while Solana slipped 5.5% below the psychological $100 mark.

But the crypto carnage wasn't happening in isolation. Major software stocks took a beating: Shopify, Adobe, Salesforce, and Intuit all plummeted 7-12% during the session. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF dropped 5% in a single day, bringing its weekly losses to 14% and marking a 28% decline from its October peak.

Perhaps more telling were the losses in private equity giants. Blackstone, Ares Capital, KKR, and Apollo all shed 6-10%, suggesting that even the smart money is getting nervous.

The BlackRock Warning Shot

The catalyst for this synchronized selloff traces back to a seemingly routine Friday evening filing on January 23rd. BlackRock TCP Capital announced it would mark down its net asset value by 19%—a move that sent ripples far beyond the private debt world.

Markets interpreted this as a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment, hinting that economic conditions and liquidity might be tighter than headline numbers suggest. Bitcoin was actually trading near $91,000 that day, but it's been "pretty much straight down since," as one analyst put it.

Crypto-related stocks mirrored the slide. Galaxy led losses with an 18% plunge following earnings, while MicroStrategy, Coinbase, Circle, and Bullish all declined 5-7%.

"This Is Crypto Winter"

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan isn't mincing words about what's happening. He argues this isn't a bull market correction—it's a full-blown crypto winter, similar to the brutal downturns of 2018 and 2022.

"This is not a 'bull market correction' or 'a dip,'" Hougan wrote in a Monday note. "It is a full-bore, 2022-like, Leonardo-DiCaprio-in-The-Revenant-style crypto winter."

But there's a silver lining in Hougan's analysis. Historical crypto winters typically last about 13 months. If you mark the beginning of this bear market at January 2025, rather than October, crypto could be within weeks of bottoming out.

"As a veteran of multiple crypto winters, I can tell you that the end of those crypto winters feel a lot like now: despair, desperation, and malaise," he noted.