Bitcoin reels below $90,000 as Bybit hack adds to crypto blues

Bitcoin headed for its biggest one-day drop since August on Tuesday, driven by nervousness over U.S. tariffs and results from Nvidia, as last week's hack of $1.5 billion worth of ether from the Bybit exchange delivered a blow to investor confidence. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value, broke below $90,000 to its lowest since November, falling by as much as 7.5% at one point, in its largest daily drop since a global market sell-off in early August that also hit stocks and bonds.It was last down 6.2% on the day at $22,338.Global investors have been jittery of late on signs the so-called exceptionalism of the U.S. economy might be fading, while President Donald Trump prepares to impose tariffs.Trump indicated on Monday his plans to slap a 25% levy on imports from Canada and Mexico from early March remain on schedule. Crypto investors had been primed for another leg higher in the bitcoin price, which topped $100,000 in December, on the back of optimism the Trump administration would champion initiatives like a strategic bitcoin fund and loosen regulation.But beyond an initial flurry of appointments of crypto-friendly officials when he took office in January, there has been little concrete news for investors to trade on."The absence of new bullish catalysts — such as progress on crypto-friendly regulation or the approval of additional cryptocurrency ETFs — has kept prices range-bound in recent weeks," Thomas Erdosi, head of product at CF Benchmarks, said.In addition, investors have been pulling money out of bitcoin-backed exchange-traded funds. LSEG data shows the largest ETFs are set for a net monthly outflow of around $644 million, the largest since their launch back in January 2024.With the mood around risk assets like crypto and stocks already fragile, last week's announcement from Bybit that hackers had stolen digital tokens worth around $1.5 billion piled on more negativity. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said the crypto was taken from a "cold wallet" - a digital wallet usually stored offline and so supposedly more secure - that was used for ether tokens.Blockchain research firm Elliptic said the hack was more than double the last-biggest crypto heist and "is almost certainly the single largest known theft of any kind in all time."Dubai-headquartered Bybit is the world's second-largest exchange behind Binance.Ether (ETH=), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was down 9.5% at $2,386, around its lowest since October. In the last week alone, bitcoin has lost nearly 8% in value, while smaller altcoins have been hit even harder. Memecoin dogecoin and the tokens for the solana and cardano networks have all dropped around 20%, according to Coingecko.