ROME — Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani has died, his foundation said Monday.

Usually known only by his first name, Valentino was 93, and had retired in 2008.

Founder of the eponymous brand, Valentino scaled the heights of haute couture, created a business empire and introduced a new color to the fashion world, the ‘Valentino Red.’

‘Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones,’ the foundation said on Instagram.

He will lie in state Wednesday and Thursday, while the funeral will take place in Rome on Friday, it added.

Valentino was ranked alongside Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld as the last of the great designers from an era before fashion became a global, highly commercial industry run as much by accountants and marketing executives as the couturiers.

Lagerfeld died in 2019, while Armani died in September.

Valentino was adored by generations of royals, first ladies and movie stars, from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Julia Roberts and Queen Rania of Jordan, who swore the designer always made them look and feel their best.

“I know what women want,” he once remarked. “They want to be beautiful.”

Never one for edginess or statement dressing, Valentino made precious few fashion faux-pas throughout his nearly half-century-long career, which stretched from his early days in Rome in the 1960s through to his retirement in 2008.

His fail-safe designs made Valentino the king of the red carpet, the go-to man for A-listers’ awards ceremony needs.

His sumptuous gowns have graced countless Academy Awards, notably in 2001, when Roberts wore a vintage black and white column to accept her best actress statue. Cate Blanchett also wore Valentino — a one-shouldered number in butter-yellow silk — when she won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 2004.

Valentino was also behind the long-sleeved lace dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore for her wedding to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968. Kennedy and Valentino were close friends for decades, and for a spell, the one-time U.S. first lady wore almost exclusively Valentino.

He was also close to Diana, Princess of Wales, who often donned his sumptuous gowns.

Beyond his signature orange-tinged shade of red, other Valentino trademarks included bows, ruffles, lace and embroidery; in short, feminine, flirty embellishments that added to the dresses’ beauty and hence to that of the wearers.

Perpetually tanned and always impeccably dressed, Valentino shared the lifestyle of his jet-set patrons. In addition to his 152-foot yacht and an art collection including works by Picasso and Miro, the couturier owned a 17th-century chateau near Paris with a garden said to boast more than a million roses.

The company that owns the iconic luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue filed for bankruptcy late Tuesday.

The move comes after Saks Global struggled with debt it took on to buy rival Neiman Marcus, lagging department store sales and a rising online market.

It’s one of the largest retail collapses since the Covid pandemic, and casts further doubt over the future of luxury fashion.

The retailer, which also owns Bergdorf Goodman, said early Wednesday its stores would remain open for now after it finalized a $1.75 billion financing package and appointed a new CEO.

The court process is meant to give the luxury retailer room to negotiate a debt restructuring with creditors or sell itself to a new owner to stave off liquidation. Failing that, the company may be forced to shutter.

Former Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck will replace Richard Baker, who was the architect of the acquisition strategy that left Saks Global saddled with debt.

The company also appointed former Neiman Marcus executives Darcy Penick and Lana Todorovich as chief commercial officer and chief of global brand partnerships at Saks Global, respectively.

Saks Fifth Avenue, the retail arm of Saks Global, listed $1 billion to $10 billion in assets and liabilities, according to court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston.

A retailer long loved by the rich and famous, from Gary Cooper to Grace Kelly, Saks fell on hard times after the pandemic, as competition from online outlets rose, and brands started more frequently selling items through their own stores.

The original Saks Fifth Avenue store, known for displaying the likes of Chanel, Cucinelli and Burberry, was opened by retail pioneer Andrew Saks in 1867.

The new financing deal would provide an immediate cash infusion of $1 billion through ‌a loan from an investor group, Saks Global said.

A host of luxury brands were among the unsecured creditors, led by Chanel and Gucci owner Kering at about $136 million and $60 million respectively, the court filing said. The world’s biggest luxury conglomerate, LVMH, was listed as an unsecured creditor at $26 million. In total, Saks Global estimated there were between 10,001 and 25,000 creditors.

In 2024, Baker had masterminded the takeover of Neiman Marcus by Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Co, which had owned Saks since 2013, and later spun off the U.S. luxury assets to create Saks Global, bringing together three names that have defined American high fashion for more than a century.

The deal was designed to create a luxury powerhouse, but it saddled Saks Global with debt at a time when global luxury sales were slowing, complicating an already difficult turnaround for CEO and veteran executive Marc Metrick.

Saks Global struggled last year to pay vendors, who began withholding inventory, disrupting the company’s supply chain and leaving it with insufficient stock.

The thinly stocked shelves may have driven shoppers away to rivals like Bloomingdale’s, which posted strong sales in 2025, compounding pressure on Saks Global.

“Rich people are still buying,” Morningstar analyst David Swartz said last month, “just not so much at Saks.”

Running out of cash, Saks Global last month sold the real estate of the Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills flagship store for an undisclosed amount. It had also been looking to sell a minority stake in exclusive department store Bergdorf Goodman to help cut debt.

On Dec. 30, it failed to make an interest payment of more than $100 million to bondholders.

Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday rejected Paramount Skydance’s amended takeover offer, the latest in a series of rejections in David Ellison’s pursuit of the streaming and cable giant.

The media company said it remains committed to the $82.7 billion deal it reached in December to sell its streaming service, studio and HBO cable channel to Netflix.

‘The Board unanimously determined that the Paramount’s latest offer remains inferior to our merger agreement with Netflix across multiple key areas,’ Warner Bros. Discovery Chairman Samuel Di Piazza said in a statement.

‘Paramount’s offer continues to provide insufficient value,’ he continued.

In a letter to shareholders, Di Piazza wrote that Paramount Skydance’s offer carries ‘significant costs, risks and uncertainties as compared to the Netflix merger.’ The way the Paramount deal is structured creates a ‘lack of certainty’ about its finalization, he added.

Di Piazza adds in the letter that if the company were to agree to the Paramount merger and it failed to close, it would result in a ‘potentially considerable value destruction.’

‘What matters most right now is our focus as we start the year,’ Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a memo to employees seen by NBC News. ‘Our operating plans remain unchanged, and our priorities for 2026 are clear and intentional.’

Zaslav wrote that the ‘review was conducted with discipline and rigor, and was supported by independent financial and legal advisors.’

On Dec. 22, Paramount Skydance increased its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery with a personal guarantee from billionaire Larry Ellison, who was backing the financing for the deal. His son, David Ellison, is the CEO of Paramount Skydance.

However, that was not enough for Warner Bros. Discovery. That beefed-up offer followed Warner Bros. Discovery’s Dec. 17 public rejection of Paramount. It also preceded multiple private rejections before Paramount Skydance went public.

In a statement Thursday, Paramount said it remained committed to the offer that WBD has rejected twice. “WBD continues to raise issues in Paramount’s offer that we have already addressed, including flexibility in interim operations,” Paramount said.

At stake is the future of one of the most storied media empires in the United States.

The bidding by Paramount also comes amid a monumental shift in the media and streaming landscape at large. On Monday, Versant Media, the cable network spinoff from Comcast, began trading as an independent company. Shares have plunged more than 20% over the course of those two days. (Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and NBC News.)

On CNBC, Di Piazza said it would be a mistake to compare Warner Bros. Discovery‘s cable networks to Versant. ‘Discovery Global is different, it has a lot more scale,’ he said.

Streaming companies such as Apple, Netflix and Amazon are also challenging traditional broadcasters such as Paramount-owned CBS for sports rights.

Warner Bros. Discovery controls properties ranging from CNN Worldwide and the Discovery Channel to HBO, as well as the Warner Bros. film studio and archive.

Despite the back and forth between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount, Netflix has so far proceeded with the deal it inked Dec. 5, under which the world’s largest streaming company would acquire a stake in WBD.

Warner’s cable networks would be spun out into a separate company as part of that deal. However, Paramount Skydance wants to buy everything Warner Bros. Discovery owns.

Paramount’s controlling shareholders, the Ellisons, have suggested they could obtain regulatory clearance more quickly and easily than Netflix.

In mid-2025, the Ellisons acquired Paramount with approval from the Trump administration. But that approval only came after CBS News agreed to pay $16 million to President Donald Trump’s future presidential library over an interview that “60 Minutes” had conducted with then-presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Netflix, for its part, has met with Trump at the White House over the deal. But Trump has said either bidder poses potential problems, in his view.

Netflix said in a statement that it ‘welcomed the Warner Bros. Discovery board of directors’ continued commitment to the merger agreement’ the two companies reached last year. ‘Netflix and Warner Bros. will bring together highly complementary strengths and a shared passion for storytelling,’ Netflix’s co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said.

Di Piazza said on CNBC that the difference between Paramount’s offer and that of Netflix is that Warner Bros. and Netflix already ‘have a signed merger agreement’ that has ‘a clear path to closing.’ Di Piazza also said the Netflix deal offers ‘protections for our shareholders, if something stops the close, whatever that might be.’

Trump has said he will be personally involved in reviewing whichever merger proceeds.

Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump Media & Technology will merge with a fusion power company in an all-stock deal that the companies said Thursday is valued at more than $6 billion.

Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the CEO of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company with TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of President Donald Trump’s Truth Social media platform, have tumbled 70% this year but jumped 20% before the opening bell Thursday.

TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.

“We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,” Nunes said in a prepared statement.

TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy, a process that occurs on the sun and other stars, according to the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own approximately 50% of the combined company.

The companies say the transaction values each TAE common stock at $53.89 per share.

At closing, Trump Media & Technology Group will be the holding company for Truth Social and TAE, along with its subsidiaries TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences.

Outages on Shopify’s e-commerce platform have been resolved, the company said late Monday, bringing to an end a daylong glitch on the annual ‘Cyber Monday’ shopping day.

Some merchants that use Shopify’s service to sell goods online said they experienced issues with checkouts through the company’s point-of-sale system.

Businesses that run on Shopify also had trouble logging into their administrative portals.

In a statement, Shopify said: ‘We had a system degradation that has now been mitigated.’

Throughout the day, business owners posted angry messages directed at the company on X, where Shopify President Harvey Finkelstein had posted ‘HAPPY CYBER MONDAY! Let’s finish strong!’ earlier in the day, with an emoji of a flexed arm.

One business, Costack Spices, based in London, replied: ‘How??? [We] cannot fulfill orders or log on,’ with three red-faced emojis. In a follow-up, the company posted, ‘This is unbelievable.’

Another user wrote, ‘@ShopifySupport I haven’t been able to access it for the last couple hours.’

Shopify replied to most users on X with the same message: ‘We are aware of an issue with Admins impacting selected stores, and are working to resolve it.’

In 2024, merchants using Shopify services recorded $11.5 billion in sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, the company said, with more than 76 million customers buying from businesses powered by the platform.

Shopify provides website design tools, online checkout services and digital advertising products to businesses of all sizes. The company says that millions of merchants use its services.

While Shopify’s share of Cyber Monday sales may be limited, smaller businesses that rely on the company to process their transactions may have missed out on crucial sales at the start of the all-important holiday season.

Total Cyber Monday sales are expected to be more than $53 billion, according to Salesforce.

Shopify stock ended the trading day down 5.9%.

MILAN — The Prada Group announced Tuesday that it has officially purchased Milan fashion rival Versace in a 1.25 billion euro (nearly $1.4 billion) deal that puts the fashion house known for its sexy silhouettes under the same roof as Prada’s “ugly chic” aesthetic and Miu Miu’s youth-driven appeal.

The highly anticipated deal is expected to relaunch Versace’s fortunes, after middling post-pandemic performance as part of the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings.

Prada said in a one-line statement that the acquisition had been completed after receiving all regulatory clearances.

Prada heir Lorenzo Bertelli will steer Versace’s next phase as executive chairman, in addition to his roles as group marketing director and sustainability chief.

The son of co-creative director Miuccia Prada and longtime Prada Group chairman Patrizio Bertelli has said he doesn’t expect to make any swift executive changes at Versace. But Bertelli has said that the company, which places among the top 10 most recognized brands in the world, has long been underperforming in the market.

Prada has underlined that the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.’’

Versace has been in the midst of a creative relaunch under a new designer, Dario Vitale, who previewed his first collection during Milan Fashion Week in September. He had previously been head of design at Miu Miu, but his move to Versace was unrelated to the Prada deal, executives have said.

Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, paid $2 billion for Versace in 2018, but had been struggling to position Versace’s bold profile in the recent era of “quiet luxury.″

Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros. An analyst presentation for the Prada deal said that Versace would represent 13% of the Prada Group’s pro-forma revenues, with Miu Miu coming in at 22% and Prada at 64%. The Prada Group, which also includes Church’s footwear, reported a 17% boost in revenues to 5.4 billion euros last year.

The Prada Group has already begun preparations to incorporate crosstown rival Versace into its Italian manufacturing system, a point of pride for the group.

“Making a bag for one brand or another, the know-how is the same,″ Bertelli told reporters last week at the group’s Scandicci leather goods factory, which already makes bags for the Prada and Miu Miu brands and will soon add Versace.

The Prada Group’s has invested 60 million euros in its supply chain this year, including a new leather goods factory near Siena, a new knitwear factory near Perugia as well as increasing production at its factory Church’s footwear factory in Britain and expanding another Tuscan factory. That’s on top of 200 million euros in investments from 2019-24.

Prada’s efforts include an academy that has trained some 570 new artisans over the last 25 years in an in-house training academy operating in the Tuscany, Marche, Veneto and Umbria regions.

Last year, Prada hired 70% of the 120 artisans who trained in the academy. The number of trainees rose by 28% to 152 this year.

PARIS — Airbus fleets were returning toward normal operations on Monday after the European plane maker pushed through abrupt software changes faster than expected, as it wrestled with safety headlines long focused on rival Boeing.

Dozens of airlines from Asia to the United States said they had carried out a snap software retrofit ordered by Airbus, and mandated by global regulators, after a vulnerability to solar flares emerged in a recent mid-air incident on a JetBlue A320.

Airbus said on Monday that the vast majority of around 6,000 of its A320-family fleet affected by the safety alert had been modified, with fewer than 100 jets still requiring work.

But some require a longer process and Colombia’s Avianca continued to halt bookings for dates until December 8.

Sources familiar with the matter said the unprecedented decision to recall about half the A320-family fleet was taken shortly after the possible but unproven link to a drop in altitude on the JetBlue jet emerged late last week.

Shares in Airbus were down 2.1% in early trading in Paris.

Following talks with regulators, Airbus issued its 8-page alert to hundreds of operators on Friday, effectively ordering a temporary grounding by ordering the repair before next flight.

“The thing hit us about 9 p.m. [Jeddah time] and I was back in here about 9:30. I was actually quite surprised how quickly we got through it: there are always complexities,” said Steven Greenway, CEO of Saudi budget carrier Flyadeal.

The instruction was seen as the broadest emergency recall in the company’s history and raised immediate concerns of travel disruption particularly during the busy U.S. Thanksgiving weekend.

The sweeping warning exposed the fact that Airbus does not have full real-time awareness of which software version is used given reporting lags, industry sources said.

At first airlines struggled to gauge the impact since the blanket alert lacked affected jets’ serial numbers. A Finnair passenger said a flight was delayed on the tarmac for checks.

Over 24 hours, engineers zeroed in on individual jets.

Several airlines revised down estimates of the number of jets impacted and time needed for the work, which Airbus initially pegged at three hours per plane.

“It has come down a lot,” an industry source said on Sunday, referring to the overall number of aircraft affected.

The fix involved reverting to an earlier version of software that handles the nose angle. It involves uploading the previous version via a cable from a device called a data loader, which is carried into the cockpit to prevent cyberattacks.

At least one major airline faced delays because it lacked enough data loaders to handle dozens of jets in such a short time, according to an executive speaking privately.

UK’s easyJet and Wizz Air said on Monday they had completed the updates over the weekend without cancelling any flights.

JetBlue said late Sunday it expected to have completed work to return to service 137 of 150 impacted aircraft by Monday and plans to cancel approximately 20 flights for Monday due to the issue.

Questions remain over a subset of generally older A320-family jets that will need a new computer rather than a mere software reset. The number of those involved has been reduced below initial estimates of 1,000, industry sources said.

Industry executives said the weekend furor highlighted changes in the industry’s playbook since the Boeing 737 MAX crisis, in which the U.S. plane maker was heavily criticized over its handling of fatal crashes blamed on a software design error.

It is the first time Airbus has had to deal with global safety attention on such a scale since that crisis. CEO Guillaume Faury publicly apologized in a deliberate shift of tone for an industry beset by lawsuits and conservative public relations. Boeing has also declared itself more open.

“Is Airbus acting with the Boeing MAX crisis in mind? Absolutely — every company in the aviation sector is,” said Ronn Torossian, chairman of New York-based 5W Public Relations.

“Boeing paid the reputational price for hesitation and opacity. Airbus clearly wants to show … a willingness to say, ‘We could have done better.’ That resonates with regulators, customers, and the flying public.”

Campbell’s has fired an executive accused of making racist comments and mocking its products and customers, the company announced on Wednesday.

The termination follows a lawsuit filed in Michigan by former employee Robert Garza against Campbell’s, the company’s then-vice president of information technology Martin Bally and another manager.

The complaint alleges retaliation and a hostile work environment, citing a November 2024 meeting between Bally and Garza to discuss salary, according to the lawsuit.

Garza allegedly recorded the conversation, and the audio — obtained by NBC News — is more than 90 minutes long.

During the interaction, the lawsuit alleges that Bally described Campbell’s as “highly process(ed) food” and said it was for “poor people.” He also allegedly made racist remarks about Indian workers, calling them “idiots.”

‘After a review, we believe the voice on the recording is in fact Martin Bally,’ Campbell’s said Wednesday. ‘The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused.’

The company said it does not tolerate the language used in the audio recording and the behavior “does not reflect” its values.

Campbell’s said it learned of the litigation and first heard segments of the audio on Nov. 20.

Bally’s termination was effective Tuesday, the company said.

According to the lawsuit, Garza told his manager, J.D. Aupperle — who is also named as a defendant, about Bally’s behavior in January 2025 and wanted to report the comments to the human resources department. He was not encouraged to report the comments, the lawsuit claims, and was then ‘abruptly terminated from employment’ later that month.

‘This situation has been very hard on Robert,’ Garza’s attorney, Zachary Runyan, said in a statement to NBC News on Tuesday. ‘He thought Campbell’s would be thankful that he reported Martin’s behavior, but instead he was abruptly fired.’

Garza is seeking monetary damages from the company.

Bally and Aupperle did not immediately return requests for comment on Wednesday.

Campbell’s said it is ‘proud of the food we make’ and ‘the comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate — they are patently absurd.’

What began as a banner day for stocks turned into a major rout, as investors signaled ongoing skepticism about the longevity of the artificial intelligence boom and trimmed hopes of support from the Federal Reserve.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2%, and the broad S&P 500 index dropped by more than 1.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which tracks 30 top-tier stocks, declined by nearly 390 points. It had been up 700 points earlier in the day. Cryptocurrencies also shed billions in value: Bitcoin had fallen below $87,000 as of late Thursday afternoon, weeks after having set highs above $120,000.

The stunning turnaround added further unease to an already shaky economy that has forced households to trim budgets amid stubborn inflation and signs of a wavering job market. With an ever-increasing part of the economy’s principal driver — consumer spending — now reliant on affluent households, an extended market pullback could inflict wider damage.

‘You don’t have to have the biggest bubble in history for an expensive stock market’ and end up seeing declines, said Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak asset management group.

Traders’ hopes were boosted early Thursday by a better-than-expected jobs report that appeared to show the economy remained resilient. Even before the day began, stocks looked poised to rise after Nvidia, the chipmaker at the heart of the AI boom, reported strong quarterly earnings and revenue.

Yet by midday, markets had turned red. The solid September jobs report diminished the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next month to lower the cost of borrowing money to spur economic activity. When investors don’t have to pay as much in interest, they often put those savings into stocks.

“The broad rebound in payrolls suggests diminished risks of a higher unemployment rate,” analysts with Morgan Stanley said in a note published shortly before noon. “We no longer expect a Fed cut in December.”

Losses were further compounded by ongoing concerns about AI — specifically, how much more profitable the companies buying chips like Nvidia’s will be. The fears were articulated Wednesday evening on X by Michael Burry, made famous by the movie ‘The Big Short.’

‘Just because something is used does not mean it is profitable,’ he wrote.

Finally, the ongoing sell-off of bitcoin indicated to some traders that a key source of support for stocks — retail or day traders — were beginning to waver on their trademark ‘buy the dip’ mentality.

‘I wouldn’t say we’ve flipped from bull to bear,’ said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers financial group. ‘I would say we’ve flipped from bull to balanced market in the short term. A lot depends on whether sentiment continues to weaken.’

Stocks had already been showing signs of flagging in recent weeks. With Thursday’s losses, the S&P 500 fell to its lowest point since September.

The long-delayed September jobs report, which showed that the United States added a sturdy 119,000 jobs, appeared to show some glimmers of hope for the economy.

Although the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% in August to 4.4%, about 450,000 workers entered the labor force. Economists view that as evidence that job opportunities are still plentiful, despite a wave of corporate layoffs.

Just before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the jobs report, Verizon told employees it planned to lay off 13,000 employees, or about 13% of its workforce.

The company joined a suite of other blue-chip employers that say they plan to eliminate tens of thousands of jobs, including Amazon, General Motors, IBM, Microsoft, Paramount, Target and UPS.

The details of the jobs report, which captured conditions before the government shutdown, as well more recent jobs data, suggested a more mixed picture for the U.S. economy.

Manufacturing shed 6,000 jobs, continuing a trend in a sector the Trump administration has touted as a key target of its economic policies. Transportation and warehousing also lost 25,300 jobs. Wage growth slowed, and job totals for July and August were revised downward.

The employment gains in September were concentrated in the health care, hospitality and social assistance sectors.

Another snapshot of the economy came courtesy of Walmart, which on Thursday reported strong sales and raised its outlook for the year. That strength points to cracks in the economy, though. Executives said the chain is luring more high-income shoppers who are looking for bargains, and noted that lower-income families are feeling more pressure.

‘As pocketbooks have been stretched, you’re seeing more consumer dollars go to necessities versus discretionary items,’ Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said on an earnings call Thursday morning.

Walmart’s stock closed 6.5% higher.

Bitcoin and ether slumped to multi-month lows on Friday, with cryptocurrencies swept up in a broader flight from riskier assets as investors worried about lofty tech valuations and bets on near-term U.S. interest rate cuts faded.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, fell 5.5% to a seven-month low of $81,668. Ether slid more than 6% to $2,661.37, its lowest in four months.

Both tokens are down roughly 12% so far this week.

Cryptocurrencies are often viewed as a barometer of risk appetite and their slide highlights how fragile the mood in markets has turned in recent days, with high-flying artificial intelligence stocks tumbling and volatility spiking VIX.

“If it’s telling a story about risk sentiment as a whole, then things could start to get really, really ugly, and that’s the concern now,” Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG, said of the fall in bitcoin.

About $1.2 trillion has been wiped off the market value of all cryptocurrencies in the past six weeks, according to market tracker CoinGecko.

Bitcoin’s slide follows a stellar run this year that propelled it to a record high above $120,000 in October, buoyed by favourable regulatory changes towards crypto assets globally.

But analysts say the market remains scarred by a record single-day slump last month that saw more than $19 billion of positions liquidated.

“The market feels a little bit dislocated, a bit fractured, a bit broken, really, since we had that selloff,” said Sycamore.

Bitcoin has since erased all its year-to-date gains and is now down 12% for the year, while ether has lost close to 19%.

Citi analyst Alex Saunders said $80,000 would be an important level as it is around the average level of bitcoin holdings in ETFs.

The selloff has also hurt share prices of crypto stockpilers, following a boom in public digital asset treasury companies this year as corporates took advantage of rising prices to buy and hold cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets.

Shares of Strategy, once the poster child for corporate bitcoin accumulation, have fallen 11% this week and were down nearly 4% in premarket trade, languishing at one-year lows.

JP Morgan said in a note this week that the company could be excluded from some MSCI equity indexes, which could spark forced selling by funds that track them.

Its Japanese peer Metaplanet has tumbled about 80% from a June peak.

Crypto exchange Coinbase was down 1.9% in premarket trade and is on course for its longest losing streak in more than a month.

Crypto miners MARA Holdings and CleanSpark were down 2.4% and 3.6%, respectively, while the Winklevoss twins’ newly-listed Gemini has plunged 62% from its listing price.

“Bitcoin market conditions are the most bearish they have been since the current bull cycle started in January 2023,” said digital asset research firm CryptoQuant in its weekly crypto report on Wednesday.

“We are highly likely to have seen most of this cycle’s demand wave pass.”