Crypto markets staged a significant rebound on Friday, with Bitcoin (BTC) climbing back above $68,000, marking a roughly 13% recovery from its Thursday low near $60,000. Despite the bounce, Bitcoin remained down 2% over the past 24 hours and was on track for its worst weekly performance since late 2022, with a nearly 14% decline for the week.
The sharp selloff earlier in the week triggered massive liquidations across crypto derivatives markets. Data from CoinGlass showed total liquidations nearing $2.6 billion over a 24-hour period, with long positions accounting for roughly $2.15 billion. Bitcoin alone saw about $1.1 billion in long liquidations. The decline extended a broader pullback from Bitcoin's all-time high of $126,000 reached in October 2025, cutting prices by roughly half.
Other major cryptocurrencies showed mixed performance. Ether (ETH) rose about 4% on Friday to $1,921 after earlier sliding to a 10-month low near $1,752, but was still headed for a weekly drop of nearly 16%. Solana (SOL) was lower by 5%, while XRP (XRP) outperformed, climbing 8% to $1.47.
The rebound coincided with a cooling in the heavy selloff of global technology stocks, to which Bitcoin's price has been closely correlated. Market participants pointed to the rapid unwinding of crowded, leveraged trades as a key driver of the volatility. "A lot of these big crowded positions are being unwound very, very quickly," said Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone.
Despite the volatility, some institutional buying interest emerged at lower levels. Binance's Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) purchased another 3,600 bitcoin worth about $250 million near $65,000 per coin, as part of a plan to convert $1 billion of reserves into bitcoin over a 30-day period. Data from Bitwise also suggested crypto hedge funds increased exposure as prices weakened.
However, pressure from outflows in U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs continued, with Deutsche Bank analysts noting more than $3 billion in outflows in January, following significant outflows in November and December. The broader crypto market has lost about $2 trillion in value since its peak of roughly $4.38 trillion in early October, with over $1 trillion of that decline occurring in the past month alone.
Traders are now watching key technical levels, with the $58,000 to $62,000 range seen as critical for determining whether the recovery can be sustained or if losses will deepen further.
