Crypto Cracks Late in Day, Bitcoin Slumps Below $106K

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Tom Carreras
June 12, 2025
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By Tom Carreras, Stephen Alpher|Edited by Stephen Alpher

Jun 12, 2025, 9:13 p.m.

A bear cools itself, lying on its back in shallow water. (Unsplash, mana5280)

A modestly down day in cryptocurrencies morphed into a deeper selloff late in the in the U.S. day on Thursday.
Above $108,000 a few hours ago, bitcoin slid below $106,000.
Trump tariff threats and boosted Middle East tensions were among the headlines, though other risk assets didn’t seem affected.

Cryptocurrencies were broadly lower on Thursday, with the selloff picking up steam in the early U.S. evening hours.

Bitcoin

BTC$106,062.58

slipped more than 2.5% over the past 24 hours to $105,900, but the declines were far steeper in altcoins, with ether

, solana

, XRP

and dogecoin

among those tokens sporting 5%-7% drops.

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Risk assets in general got off to a poor start Thursday as President Trump threatened renewed tariff measures as the early July deadline for trade deals begins to get near.

In addition, with nuclear negotiations with Iran not going well, there were boosted fears of Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

“Look, there’s a chance of massive conflict,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “We have a lot of American people in this area, and I said, we’ve got to tell them to get out, because something could happen soon, and I don’t want to be the one that didn’t give any warning and missiles are flying.”

“I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” Trump said about Israel potentially striking Iran. He stated that he had advised against an attack while negotiations were ongoing.

While U.S. stocks were able to shake off the headlines and close with modest gains, cryptos weren’t so lucky.

The rally in risk assets — crypto included — over the past several weeks has taken place amid a U.S. Federal Reserve seemingly determined not to ease monetary policy for the foreseeable future.

And yet, there continue to be signs that weak economic data may soon force the Fed’s hand — a far slowed pace of employment gains and weaker inflation numbers among them. Two more data points arrived Thursday in May’s Producer Price Index, which came in softer than forecast on both the headline and core levels, and initial jobless claims, which unexpectedly matched last week’s multi-month high of 248,000.

Continuing jobless claims rose to 1.956 million, the third consecutive gain and the highest level since November 2021.

President Trump continued his crusade to goad Fed Chair Jerome Powell into a more dovish posture, calling him a “numbskull” for not cutting rates. “I may have to force something,” threatened Trump. Powell’s term as Fed boss doesn’t end until 2026 and the president had previously said firing him prior to that was not an option.

Tom writes about markets, bitcoin mining and crypto adoption in Latin America. He has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from McGill University, and can usually be found in Costa Rica. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Stephen is CoinDesk’s managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.