Bitcoin Slides Near $62,470 as MSCI Exclusion Threat and Hashrate Drop Add to Pressure on Crypto Markets

Bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $62,470 on Friday, its second consecutive day below $63,000, with seven-day losses sitting at 2.6%. A fresh liquidity injection of roughly 350 billion yuan (over $50 billion) by the People's Bank of China, using overnight reverse repos for the first time mid-month, failed to provide any immediate lift to prices. On the regulatory front, the CLARITY Act remains stalled in the Senate, keeping a key piece of crypto market-structure legislation in limbo and weighing on assets like XRP, which is struggling to hold the $1 level.

Citi's CEO called the bill 'excellent for the system' despite ongoing challenges to its passage. Strategy faces a separate and significant threat: MSCI opened a consultation this month on rules targeting 'non-operating companies,' a screening that analysts estimate could force roughly $2.8 billion in passive selling of MSTR shares if the company is removed from major indexes. Metaplanet faces similar exclusion risk.

Strategy responded defiantly, effectively telling MSCI that 'Bitcoin doesn't need you,' while Peter Schiff warned that CEO Michael Saylor may be forced to sell considerably more Bitcoin and MSTR shares as the firm tries to push its STRC preferred stock back toward its $100 target. Adding to the structural shift in the mining sector, Bitcoin's network hashrate has dropped as much as 17% below its all-time high as publicly listed miners redirect power and capital toward artificial intelligence data centers. Public miners now hold over $70 billion in AI contracts, and CoinShares projects that AI and high-performance computing could account for 70% of listed miners' revenue by the end of 2026.

Bitcoin miner Hyperscale sold most of its Bitcoin holdings to fund its own pivot to AI data centers, though it said it plans to rebuild its BTC position through mining and future purchases. On the stablecoin side, Ripple minted another $50 million in RLUSD on Ethereum, lifting total supply to nearly $1.63 billion and bringing Ethereum and the XRP Ledger to nearly equal shares of that supply, with only about $5.7 million separating them.