Bitcoin and crypto prices are in free fall as an “alarming” crash gathers pace.
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The bitcoin price has dropped toward $60,000 per bitcoin, down more than 50% since hitting an all-time high of $126,000 in October last year, even as fears swirl of a massive Federal Reserve bailout for the U.S. dollar.
Now, as traders brace for a BlackRock “bloodbath,” Wall Street giants have revealed they are quietly plotting a “big” crypto move.
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JPMorgan, led by chief executive Jamie Dimon, is reportedly involved in the banks’ plans, which could send shockwaves though crypto markets and the bitcoin price.
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Four of the biggest banks on Wall Street, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi and Wells Fargo, are developing a tokenized deposit network that could be launched as soon as 2027, operated by the banking industry-owned real-time payment network company Clearing House.
Clearing House chief executive David Watson told the WSJ, which first reported the news, that the initiative marks a “big move for the banks,” adding that the industry faces a “radically different” future built around onchain payments and finance.
The move is Wall Street’s latest effort to integrate blockchain into traditional finance, enabling tokenized deposits to move instantly and support around-the-clock settlement as crypto companies increasingly compete with traditional financial giants.
In April, JPMorgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, a bitcoin skeptic but long-time crypto technology supporter, said the bank must move faster to keep up with blockchain-based competitors as tokenization reshapes the financial system.
“A whole new set of competitors is emerging based on blockchain, which includes stablecoins, smart contracts and other forms of tokenization,” Dimon wrote in his annual letter to share holders, framing crypto-based tokenization as a direct challenge to traditional banking models.
In recent years, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has led the tokenization push on Wall Street, establishing a beachhead with its wildly-successful $50 billion spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and chief executive Larry Fink declaring tokenization a coming “revolution” for the finance industry.
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The bitcoin price has fallen sharply, dropping toward $60,000 and sparking fears of another bitcoin price crash.
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Despite the Wall Street push for adoption of bitcoin and crypto technology, the bitcoin price has failed to match the gains made by U.S. technology companies so far this year.
“Historically, bitcoin has mirrored the behavior of high-beta risk assets, particularly U.S. tech stocks,” Carolane de Palmas, an analyst with ActivTrades, said in emailed comments.
“However, the traditional market playbook has been entirely inverted by the current environment, where surging tech shares drive Wall Street to record highs as bitcoin stagnates. Today, capital seems to be rotating out of crypto and into high-momentum AI plays and high-profile tech IPOs like SpaceX and Anthropic. Ultimately, capital flows where the narrative is the strongest, and right now, bitcoin is lacking a compelling story.”
Bitcoin and crypto traders are scrambling to justify holding on to their digital assets as the outlook appears increasingly bleak to market watchers.
“Bitcoin … is searching for its next catalyst and without a credible bullish catalyst, prices are likely to remain under pressure,” de Palmas said.
“The $60,000 level is the critical line in the sand and a sustained break below that toward the $58,880 monthly support would be a strong bearish signal that could accelerate further selling. Choppy, range-bound price action looks like the base case for the weeks ahead, with downside risk skewed to the downside if institutional selling continues.”
The combined bitcoin and crypto market has lost another 3% over the last 24 hours, with the market now down around $2 trillion since its October 2025 peak.
“The crypto market has accelerated its decline: market capitalisation has fallen to $2.22 trillion,” Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro’s chief market analyst, said in an emailed note, adding that bitcoin is “testing the 200-week moving average at $61,300.”