A wave of crypto-linked ETFs plunged to fresh 52-week lows Friday morning, led lower by Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) accelerating breakdown.
• BITO is testing critical support. Check out the latest moves here.
The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSE:BITO), one of the most liquid futures-based Bitcoin funds, led the declines as its NAV tracked Bitcoin lower through all major bull-market support levels. The fund crashed 4.2% on Friday, plunging 54% from its 52-week high, to reach $12.96.
Options-income products were hit even harder. The Neos Bitcoin High Income ETF (BATS:BTCI) and YieldMax Bitcoin Option Income Strategy ETF (NYSE:YBIT), both designed to extract yield from volatility, saw their income cushions overwhelmed by the speed of the sell-off. BTCI dipped 4% on Friday morning, crashing 37% from its 52-week high. YBIT, on the other hand, is down 3.5% on Friday and 58% lower than its 52-week high.
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The drop tracks Bitcoin's decisive slide below all major bull-market support levels — a move analysts say has shifted the market from a routine pullback into a deeper corrective phase. Because these ETFs track Bitcoin through futures, covered-call overlays or income strategies, they fell in tandem as Bitcoin lost key trendlines on both daily and weekly charts and slipped toward major support zones highlighted by traders.
Covered-call ETFs also cracked. Roundhill’s Bitcoin Covered Call ETF (BATS:YBTC) and its Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) sibling Roundhill Ether Covered Call Strategy ETF (BATS:YETH) both slid to new lows, reflecting pressure not only from falling token prices but also from declining realized volatility. With spot markets breaking key trendlines, these ETFs lost their core stabilizer, leaving them heavily exposed to the underlying crypto slump.
For the moment, the entire Bitcoin-linked ETF complex appears to be pricing in the possibility of a deeper corrective phase. Real inflow and outflow data, still pending, will indicate whether institutional allocators are leaning into weakness or stepping back during the shakeout.
Traders Flag Bottoming Signs, But Caution Dominates
Amid the sell-off, some analysts say Bitcoin may be nearing a local exhaustion point. Bitcoin is down roughly $40,000 from its highs but has bounced about 30% from this week’s intraday lows.
Crypto trader Pentoshi, who avoided calling dips throughout the correction, now argues Bitcoin is “within a few percent” of a potential bottom, highlighting the $83,000-$85,000 range as a high-probability reaction zone. That being said, he warned against emotional buying and pointed out even ultra-bull Michael Saylor is up less than 10% over five years — an indication of how brutal the cycle has been.
On-chain data provides some nuance: Whale activity, according to Santiment, surged during the decline, with over 102,900 large transactions this week alone. While analysts see a shift in behavior from distribution to early accumulation, traders such as Altcoin Sherpa caution that short-term players might have to withstand another 10%–15% drop if patterns continue.
Macro Voices See 2026 As The Real Target
Zooming out, Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson says the current slump fits into the historical post-halving digestion phase. He expects the next two quarters to “clear remaining downside” before Bitcoin’s eventual climb toward $250,000 by late 2026, supported by stronger institutional participation from firms like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.
For now, though, ETF investors are bracing for more volatility and waiting to see whether the $75,000–$80,000 zone becomes a durable floor or merely another waypoint in Bitcoin's reset.
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