Bitcoin Falls Below $70,000 as Liquidations Top $620 Million in Four Hours

Since the $6.3 billion Binance theft on Oct. 29 sent Bitcoin tumbling toward $76,500, the price has kept sliding. Late Thursday, Nov. 12, it broke below $70,000.

Bitcoin hit an intraday low of $68,943 and later steadied near $69,297, down roughly 6% over 24 hours. Earlier in the week it traded above $76,000. Thursday's level is the lowest since Aug. 20.

The liquidation cascade

CoinGlass data showed $622 million in crypto liquidations over four hours. Longs took the damage: $549 million in long positions were wiped out against $72.46 million in shorts.

Over a full 24 hours, totals vary by snapshot. Bitcoin.com News cited more than $656 million as of 9:33 a.m. ET, with more than 122,000 traders liquidated. Other tallies run higher, from $680.81 million to above $720 million.

The mechanics are simple. Traders who borrowed to buy Bitcoin get force-closed when price falls through their margin levels. Those forced sales push price lower, which triggers the next batch. Liquidation maps had flagged long positions below $70,000 as especially exposed.

The largest single hit was a $31.09 million BTC-USD long on Hyperliquid, closed near $72,250. That was well above $70,000, so the damage started before the headline level broke.

Binance accounted for about 37% of exchange-level liquidation activity, per CoinGlass figures cited by Bitcoin.com News. About $226.5 million in positions vanished around 8:15 a.m. ET.

The pain spread. Ethereum saw roughly $120 million in liquidations and Solana about $23 million. Ether traded around $1,955 and Solana near $79 late Thursday.

What traders are pointing to

No single cause has been established. Several developments landed on the same day.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stepped down unexpectedly, according to market reports, and tech stocks weakened. MSCI confirmed Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, will be removed from its major equity indices. Index funds must sell the shares, but the company keeps its Bitcoin, CryptoTicker's market analysis noted.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost money for a fifth straight day, with $1.44 billion leaving in five days, per CryptoTicker. Crypto Briefing put the outflow at around $2 billion over three weeks.

Macro pressure is also in the mix. Reports of firm October inflation have revived talk of Fed tightening, and CryptoTicker's analysis says traders see a December rate hike as almost certain. The Fear and Greed Index sat at 28 on that analysis, in fear territory for several days.

Deleveraging versus a change in the story

Crypto Briefing's read is that this was deleveraging, not a shift in Bitcoin's underlying fundamentals. Risk-off sentiment did the rest, it said.

That view has a counterweight in the ETF numbers. Crypto Briefing itself described the $2 billion in outflows as a sign of hesitation among the mainstream investors who drove much of the recent demand.

The Binance episode earlier this month drew a similar split. Lacie Zhang of Bitget Wallet called it more a confidence shock to centralized crypto infrastructure than to Bitcoin itself. Ryan Kirkley of Global Settlement Network warned against confusing Binance's financial strength with operational security.

Binance said it replenished roughly 95% of impacted assets and would absorb the loss rather than its users. The FBI has blamed North Korea for the hack.

The selloff in crypto stocks that followed the hack was steep. Coinbase fell more than 14%, Strategy more than 9% and Robinhood more than 10% on the day after the theft.

Levels in play

The 200-day moving average sits at $73,125, and Bitcoin fell through it Thursday. CryptoTicker's analysis says only a move back above that mark would repair the break. It lists $74,700 as the next resistance and $69,300 as the support below.

Bitcoin is now sitting almost on that $69,300 line. A lot of leverage has been flushed in four hours, but the ETF flows and December Fed expectations are still unresolved, and both will show up in the numbers before the week is out.