Bitcoin's brutal crash deepened Thursday as the price fell below $67,000, wiping out fortunes and shattering claims it was 'digital gold'.

The world's biggest cryptocurrency has now lost nearly half its value since peaking just above $126,000 in early October, leaving many small investors nursing heavy losses.

Bitcoin slipped as low as $67,675 on Thursday, its weakest level since November 2024, after breaking below the $70,000 mark and triggering another wave of selling.

The token is down 20 percent this week alone and off 47 percent from its peak just four months ago.

'This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing interest, and overall pessimism about crypto is growing,' Deutsche Bank analyst Marion Laboure said Wednesday in a note to clients.

When prices fall this fast, fortunes can vanish overnight - and some investors end up worse off than broke, having borrowed money to buy crypto and still owing cash even after their savings have been wiped out.

The slump has also hit some big Wall Street-listed companies that tied their fortunes directly to bitcoin.

One of the most exposed is Strategy, run by crypto evangelist Michael Saylor. Formerly known as MicroStrategy, the firm has spent the past five years piling into bitcoin and now holds nearly 713,000 tokens.

The company paid an average of about $76,000 per coin - roughly 13 percent higher than today's price of around $67,000 - meaning its vast bitcoin stash is now sitting at a loss rather than a profit.

As a result, Strategy's own share price has cratered too, sliding about 20 percent in just the past five days as bitcoin's sell-off intensified.

Bitcoin was once promoted as a safe place to park money during inflation scares and global turmoil - similar to gold.

That promise has not held up. Instead, the cryptocurrency has largely moved in the same direction as risky assets like stocks, rising when markets are booming and falling when fear sets in.

Over the past 12 months, bitcoin - despite soaring in value in the summer and fall - is down nearly 29 percent, Google Finance data shows. Strategy is down an huge 67 percent over that period.

Gold has moved in the opposite direction, surging 69 percent over the same period as investors looked for safer places to put their money. 

And the broader US stock market has continued to climb. The S&P 500, widely seen as the main barometer for American shares, is up nearly 13 percent over the same period.