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The price of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, slid to below $100,000 on Monday morning, representing a sharp drop from the nearly $110,000 valuation it held prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Ahead of the price plunge, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, forecast that in the short-term, bitcoin was heading for a potential correction to $70,000 or $75,000 as a “mini financial crisis” loomed on the horizon.

However, Hayes offered an optimistic outlook in the long-term by underlining that bitcoin would skyrocket to $250,000 at the end of 2025: “A resumption of money printing… will send us to $250k by the end of the year,” Hayes said.

DeepSeek, a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app that is growing in popularity since its launch this month, has been cited as a major factor behind bitcoin's price drop . Similarly, the price of tech stocks like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta also saw precipitous price declines on Monday.

"This idea of a low-cost Chinese version hasn't necessarily been forefront, so it's taken the market a little bit by surprise," Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index, told BBC .

Recent CoinGlass data shows that the broader crypto market saw approximately $864 million erased.

This week, the U.S. Federal Reserve is set to announce a potential interest rate decision, though analysts anticipate it will remain between 4.25% and 4.5%. If the rate holds steady, bitcoin prices are expected to remain unaffected, as it would signal economic stability and continuity in the current monetary policy environment.