Bitcoin BTC$65,998.73 has fallen back to the low end of its recent trading range during late-morning U.S. trading hours on Thursday as the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbles 1.6%.

Trading at $65,700, bitcoin is now lower by 1.5% over the past 24 hours, while ether ETH$1,923.25, just above $1,900, is down more than 2%.

The bitcoin price action — uncorrelated with the Nasdaq when that index is headed higher, but perfectly correlated when it heads lower — has become all too familiar for the crypto sector. And the failure to hold any sort of sustained bounce from last week's panicky plunge has bulls seemingly in full capitulation mode.

Alternative's well-followed Crypto Fear & Greed Index today fell to just 5, a level of "extreme fear" exceeding even what was seen during the multiple collapses of the 2022 crypto winter and the 2020 Covid crash.

Also raising eyebrows is longtime bull Geoff Kendrick from Standard Chartered, slashing his 2026 price targets for bitcoin, ether, solana, BNB and AVAX, while warning bitcoin could dip to as low as $50,000.

Crypto stocks lose ground

Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD) are among the largest losers on Thursday, each down more than 8%. Coinbase reports fourth-quarter results after the bell, but Robinhood’s fourth-quarter report earlier this week confirmed that the crypto bear market had taken a large bite out of trading revenues in the final three months of 2025 — and that was before the price action got really bad to begin 2026.

Other large decliners today include Strategy (MSTR), down 4.2%, Circle Financial (CRCL), down 4.3%, and Hut 8 (HUT), down 6.6%.