Bitcoin faces its worst losing streak since 2018. Analysts blame these five factors for free-falling price

Bitcoin is about to register its worst losing streak in more than seven years.

That’s because tariff troubles, artificial intelligence anxieties, regulatory holdups and more hang heavy over the top cryptocurrency’s price.

For four straight months, Bitcoin’s price has steadily fallen from its all-time high of over $126,000 to around $65,500 — a 48% drop.

As March approaches, Bitcoin is set to end February down another 16%, marking its fifth monthly fall in a row — a situation that has only occurred once before between August and December in 2018.

Bitcoin’s fall has been spurred on by several key macroeconomic factors rather than a single crypto-specific catalyst, Tony Pecore, senior vice president and director of digital asset management at Franklin Templeton, told DL News.

“Digital assets tend to respond quickly to these shifts because they trade continuously and carry higher embedded leverage, which is why we so often look to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as a leading indicator of changes in investor risk appetite,” he said.

Rising headwinds

It’s a stark shift from the bullishness that pervaded the crypto market for much of 2025.

President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto policies, coupled with the passing of key stablecoin legislation in July, helped boost the crypto market to an all-time high of almost $4.4 trillion.

Yet in recent months, rising headwinds have put pressure on digital assets.

Trump’s ongoing trade war is one of the primary drivers of Bitcoin’s decline early this week, Carlos Guzman, vice president of research at GSR, a crypto trading firm, told DL News.

“Markets initially reacted positively to the US Supreme Court striking down Trump’s tariffs,” he said. “But the market quickly retraced after Trump threatened to impose even higher tariffs of 15% globally over the weekend.”

That’s not all.

Heightened fears over the disruptive impact of AI are also spurring volatility, according to Guzman.

On Sunday, a report from Citrini Research, an investment research provider, warned that the AI boom, which has helped boost markets for years, will ultimately hurt investors and crush the wider economy.

The report argues that if AI continues to advance, it will trigger widespread white-collar layoffs, weakening consumer spending and slowing growth.

Then there’s Bitcoin’s uncertain place in the broader economic landscape.

While Bitcoin slid, gold gained 24% over the past five months as it benefitted from the so-called debasement trade. This has invited fresh scepticism about Bitcoin’s digital gold narrative, Fabian Dori, chief investment officer at Sygnum Bank, told DL News.

Crypto-specific factors

Those anxieties are compounded by several more crypto-specific factors.

As Bitcoin falls, investors are increasingly concerned that the crypto market’s historical four-year cycle is repeating, Dori said.

The cycle refers to the recurring pattern observed in Bitcoin’s and the broader crypto market’s price behaviour, which aligns with Bitcoin’s halving events that occur roughly every four years.

Bitcoin has historically rallied to all-time highs after each halving before dropping into an extended bear market. With crypto becoming more institutionalised in recent years, many investors had hoped that the four-year cycle would disappear.

Elsewhere, efforts to regulate the US crypto industry are stagnating, creating even more uncertainty for investors, according to Dori.

The biggest let-down is the Clarity Act, a broad bill on crypto market structure that has stalled in the US Senate.

The bill was previously predicted to pass into law before the end of 2025, but has faced numerous delays since the start of the year.

Still, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse gave the bill a 90% chance of passing by the end of April in an interview with Fox Business on February 19.

Some analysts remain optimistic about Bitcoin’s bleed out.

“This type of correction can be constructive for the underlying ecosystem,” Franklin Templeton’s Pecore said.

“Speculative activity declines, and attention shifts toward fundamentals: real usage, infrastructure, and sustainable economics.”

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at [email protected].