Bitcoin suffers first monthly loss in 7 years

Bitcoin suffered a monthly loss in October for the first time since 2018, snapping a seven-year streak of gains on Friday, October 31, 2025.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, is set for a nearly 5% decline this month, as the digital asset has struggled in recent weeks amid broader market jitters and muted investor risk appetite.

Cryptocurrencies “came into October, tracking gold, tracking stocks near all-time highs, and then as uncertainty hit people for the first time maybe this year, they didn’t rotate back into bitcoin en masse,” a senior research analyst at digital market data provider Kaiko, Adam McCarthy, said.

October saw the largest crypto liquidation in history after United States President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese imports and threatened export controls on critical software.

Bitcoin fell as low as $104,782.88 during the October 10-11 period, after setting a fresh record high just days earlier above $126,000.

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McCarthy added: “That washout on the 10th, it really reminded people that this asset class is very narrow.

“It’s bitcoin and (ether), and even those can still have 10% drawdowns in 15, 20 minutes.”

A whirlwind October is set to end with spooked investors unsure of the global monetary policy path in the near term, as the U.S. Federal Reserve pushed back against market bets that it would continue to cut rates this year as the government shutdown blocks crucial economic data.

Despite its October decline, bitcoin is still up more than 16% so far in 2025, Reuters reported.

Cryptocurrencies have generally enjoyed a boost this year as Trump has embraced digital assets, which has led to the dismissal of a spate of lawsuits against prominent crypto platforms and a shift by Trump’s financial regulators to create specialised rules to accommodate digital assets.

The Star