The 50-week moving average of Ethereum crossed below the 200-week average, creating a “death cross.” This is seen as a long-term bearish indicator. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is struggling to stay above $62,000 after being unable to break through the $64,000 to $65,000 resistance area. Such a pattern matters for the retail investors who flocked into crypto through exchange-traded funds and are now trading in the red.

Bitcoin price declined by around 2% over the last 24 hours and was mostly stuck in the low $62,000 territory. However, it recovered from dropping below $58,000, a new 21-month low. Ethereum has been trading below $1,750, which is almost 4% lower than the previous day and about 30% below its value one year ago. All other altcoins followed suit. Crypto market cap excluding Bitcoin and Ether has declined 30% from January.

Ether’s technical warning

The death cross is the main technical event. On-Chain data shows that the 50-week exponential moving average of Ether has crossed below its 200-week counterpart. This has previously managed to avoid such a move during all selloffs. Prediction markets traders bet that the bear trend will continue. It appears that there is a 72.3% chance that Ether will reach $1,500 before rising to $3,000. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index reads 26, flashing “extreme fear” among investors.

Crypto ETF outflows laid out the most evident statistic of the destruction. The outflows of US Bitcoin funds amounted to nearly $1.79 billion in the week ending June 26, and opinions differ regarding how terrible this performance was. The data showed that it was one of the worst weeks for Bitcoin ETFs since their introduction in January 2024. Turns out that this $1.79 billion outflow equals the second biggest week on record, being beaten only by a $2.61 billion outflow in late February 2025.

Regardless of that, this streak is the longest one yet for the group. As per SoSoValue data, there were already seven consecutive weeks of outflows, which began back in mid-May and exceeded two prior five-week streaks.

ETF investors turn underwater

Those ETF outflows tell the tale of retail. The typical IBIT investor is now sitting on close to 40% in losses. This is in sharp contrast to the typical IBIT investor being in the black by about 30% as of mid-2025. IBIT has posted $60.26 billion in inflows but has net assets of $44.42 billion as Bitcoin price dipped by more than 23% over the last 60 days.

The situation is equally dire for Spot Ether funds, which have lost $273.34 million over the same period, marking their seventh consecutive week of outflows.

There is one piece of positive news as Bitcoin ETFs ended a 10-day streak of $2.7 billion in outflows. The sell-off has coincided with a hawkish stance from the Fed. The Fed kept interest rates unchanged at its June 18 meeting and removed the word “ease” from its statement, while the probability of a rate increase in December is currently above 50%, 

This pessimism might be overstated, given that every Bitcoin bear cycle since 2009 ended with the onset of extreme fear, and the next halving period, when the production of new bitcoins falls by half, is expected in about 21 months. This time, there is an additional factor to offset the bear market – the presence of institutional investors in the form of spot ETFs, company balance sheets, and the legal framework of digital assets, which was nonexistent during the previous cycle.

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