Bitcoin falls below $60,000, on track for a rare back-to-back quarterly loss

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Bitcoin slipped below $60,000 over the weekend and is poised to end a weak first half of the year with a roughly 12 percent drop in the second quarter after a 22 percent decline in the first.
Major altcoins have fallen even more sharply, with ether down about 25 percent this quarter and other tokens such as dogecoin, HYPE and XRP posting double-digit weekly losses while tron and solana proved relatively more resilient.
The back-to-back losing quarters, driven by outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, a hawkish Federal Reserve and a strong dollar, break from bitcoin’s historically strong second-quarter performance and leave traders watching whether the weakness persists into the third quarter.

Bitcoin dipped below $60,000 over the weekend, trading around $59,940 on Sunday, down 0.6% over 24 hours and nearly 7% on the week, per CoinDesk data, as a quarter of selling neared its final days.

The altcoins again led the way down. Ether fell 9.5% on the week to about $1,567, dogecoin dropped 11.7% to $0.073, Hyperliquid's HYPE lost 10.6% and XRP slid 8.7% to $1.04. Solana held up better at $70, off 3.5%, and tron was the most resilient, down 1.5%.

The market has spent the week leaning on bitcoin's relative steadiness while everything riskier fell faster.

The weekend marks the end of a weak first half, with just two days to go. Bitcoin is on track to finish the second quarter down about 12%, after a roughly 22% drop in the first, according to data from Coinglass. Ether has fared worse, down about 25% in the second quarter following a 29% first-quarter fall.

Two straight losing quarters to open a year is unusual for both - having only happened twice in BTC's history. The asset'ss second quarter has historically been one of its stronger stretches, averaging gains over the past decade, and back-to-back red quarters to start a year break from that pattern.

The drivers are the same ones that have defined the month. Capital has found a current favourite in semiconductor and memory-chip stocks amid the onoing AI boom. On the other hand, outflows from US spot bitcoin ETFs, a hawkish Federal Reserve under new Chair Kevin Warsh and a U.S. dollar near a seven-month high have weighed on crypto throughout, and a tech-stock selloff earlier in the week added to the pressure.

Traders will watch into the third quarter whether the ETF outflows and soft demand ease, or whether the weakness that has run through the first half carries into the second.