Key Takeaways:
Bitcoin's slide below $63,000 on Aug 2 dragged most altcoins lower, but Cardano bucked the trend, exposing a split between risk-off selling and targeted capital rotation.
Bitcoin fell below $63,000 on Aug 2, triggering a broad altcoin sell-off while Cardano rose, as policy delays and on-chain stress indicators pressured the wider cryptocurrency market.
"Bitcoin's weakness could reflect broader shifts in investor sentiment, which has taken a serious hit following the US-Iran hostilities, rather than a crypto-specific problem," Presto research said.
The drop extends a slide that has cut Bitcoin roughly 50 percent from its October 2025 record high, with crypto markets shedding $2.3 trillion since then as hot money rotated into AI stocks. Cardano's gain against the sell-off points to capital rotation or token-specific catalysts, even as leveraged positions face cascading liquidations.
Policy delays may prolong regulatory uncertainty and weigh on recovery prospects, with Bitcoin's next key support at $58,000, the level it touched at the end of June.
The sell-off follows a hardware-wallet attack that drained roughly 594 bitcoin worth about $50 million from hundreds of wallets, according to Galaxy Research. The exploit, which targeted Coldcard devices made by Canada's Coinkite, expanded to about 1,200 addresses holding more than 1,000 bitcoin worth roughly $70 million, prompting an emergency firmware update.
Coinkite chief executive Rodolfo Novak apologized on X, saying the company took "full accountability for the firmware bug" and that its review process had failed to catch it. The bug let attackers predict wallet keys generated from chip serial numbers and clock registers rather than a random generator, exposing funds created on affected firmware versions.
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds extended their worst outflow streak since launch, with investors pulling approximately $1 billion in late May and early June, raising concerns about weakening institutional demand. Over 208,000 traders were liquidated during the June crash, with bitcoin accounting for more than $800 million in losses, CoinGlass data shows.
The divergence between Bitcoin and Cardano suggests traders are rotating into specific tokens rather than exiting crypto entirely, a pattern that could offer short-term opportunities even as the broader market stays under pressure. With policy delays keeping regulatory clarity out of reach and on-chain stress indicators flashing, Bitcoin's path back toward its record high depends on stabilizing macro conditions and a halt to the ETF outflows that have defined the past two months.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
