Bitcoin Slumps Below $70,000. Robinhood, Coinbase, and Other Crypto Stocks Follow It Down. — Barrons.com

By Ty RoushBitcoin's selloff deepened Friday, dragging cryptocurrency stocks further down as renewed concerns about interest rates fueled a broader retreat from risky assets.The leading cryptocurrency's value has dropped 3.1% over the last 24 hours to $69,127, according to CoinDesk. It fell as low as $67,683, its lowest intraday level since August. Bitcoin's price has dropped 9% this week, putting it on pace for its worst weekly performance since June.Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have faced a tougher outlook in recent weeks. Stubborn inflation has dampened expectations for interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, while the prospect of higher borrowing costs and a strengthening U.S. dollar has made riskier investments, like Bitcoin, less attractive.A selloff in technology stocks has further eroded investors' appetite for risk. Persistent concerns about a slowdown in artificial-intelligence spending, compounded by fresh uncertainty surrounding Nvidia following CEO Jensen Huang's resignation, have weighed on technology shares and added to the pressure on cryptocurrencies.The downturn has spilled over into shares of cryptocurrency-linked companies.Coinbase Global shares fell 1.9%. Robinhood Markets declined 1.1%, while Strategy, the world's largest institutional holder of Bitcoin, dropped 0.8%.Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, declined 1.9% to $1,965.The selling has been particularly severe among investors who borrowed money to bet on Bitcoin's price rising. About $913 million in leveraged Bitcoin positions were forcibly closed over the last 24 hours, with bullish bets accounting for 95% of the total, according to CoinMarketCap Research.But the selloff hasn't necessarily been driven by investors abandoning Bitcoin. Buyers in the spot market, where cryptocurrencies are purchased directly rather than through derivatives, recorded net purchases of $160 million over the past three trading sessions, even as leveraged traders were forced to sell."We're not seeing Bitcoin holders losing their nerve, forced selling came out of leveraged positions," said CoinMarketCap researchers. "People buying Bitcoin kept buying all week."Write to Ty Roush at [email protected] content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.