Bitcoin continued to decline on Friday, dropping below $60,000 during intraday trading—the first time it has fallen below this level since 2024. Major crypto assets followed suit, pressured by stronger-than-expected U.S. employment data, ETF fund flows volatility, and the Zcash security incident.
Major cryptocurrencies generally declined over the past week.
As of press time, Bitcoin is trading at $59,909, down approximately 6% on the day and 18.5% over the past week. Ethereum is trading at $1,555, down about 23% for the week; Solana is trading at $63.75, down 22% over the past seven days.
Bitcoin has declined more than 52% from its all-time high of $126,080 set in October last year. In the first half of this week, the market viewed sustained ETF outflows and Strategy’s sale of Bitcoin for the first time since 2022 as key factors behind the previous downturn.
U.S. employment data lowers expectations for rate cuts
The latest downturn is more closely related to changes in macroeconomic data. The U.S. added 172,000 jobs in May, roughly double market expectations. Following the data release, traders increased their bets on further interest rate hikes this year, which typically weighs on risk assets like Bitcoin.
Nansen, a crypto data firm, research analyst Nai Søndergaard stated that strong employment data has weakened market expectations for interest rate cuts. He believes that Bitcoin has already declined significantly, and leveraged long positions have not yet been fully unwound; with no new macroeconomic catalysts, the room for price recovery is limited. Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East are also suppressing overall risk appetite.
Zcash vulnerability disclosure undermines market confidence
In addition to macroeconomic factors, the Zcash vulnerability incident further dampened market sentiment. The development team released a patch this week, but stated on Thursday that, due to the network’s emphasis on privacy design, it is currently impossible to confirm whether the vulnerability was exploited to mint an potentially unlimited number of ZEC.
This disclosure triggered a sharp decline in ZEC’s price, with a drop of over 40% in the past 24 hours. As the market assesses the subsequent impact on Zcash, some investors are also concerned that increasingly capable AI models may someday be used to uncover potential vulnerabilities in other major cryptocurrencies, further heightening industry sensitivity to security issues.
Notably, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs ended a 13-day streak of net outflows on Thursday, recording over $3 million in net inflows. Although modest in scale, this shift—at a time when weeks of cumulative outflows totaling billions of dollars had turned overall 2026 fund flows negative—suggests at least a temporary easing of selling pressure.