Bitcoin price falls below $70,000 as $1.3 billion in leveraged bets are wiped out

The bitcoin price fell below the $70,000 mark overnight into Friday. At around 4:50 a.m. CET on Friday morning, one bitcoin cost roughly $69,000, or €62,400, according to CoinGecko, down 6.4 percent in 24 hours. The largest cryptocurrency last traded this low in August. The slide was driven mainly by forced selling of leveraged positions, accompanied by reports of a new military escalation in the Middle East and persistent outflows from US bitcoin ETFs.

For investors, three practical questions now arise: whether they are in the market with leverage, whether their coins are held in the right place and how a loss affects their tax records. This article puts the overnight figures into context and sets out the price levels that will decide the coming days.

Bitcoin below $70,000: the lowest level since August

Bitcoin last traded below $70,000 in late summer. The US trade publication CoinDesk names August 19 as the last day with a lower price, while the Russian news agency TASS, using data from the exchange Binance, points to August 20. The two dates differ by a day because the sources measured at different times.

The decline did not come out of nowhere. Seven days ago bitcoin was still trading at a little over $75,800, according to CoinGecko daily data, and 30 days ago at around $81,600. Since mid-October the cryptocurrency has therefore lost a good 15 percent. It now stands about 45 percent below its record high of around $126,000 from October 2025.

The rest of the market also gave way. Ethereum fell below $2,000 and stood at about $1,950 in the morning, a loss of around 5 percent. BNB lost a good 6 percent and Solana around 5 percent, while XRP held just above $1 with a decline of about 3.6 percent.

Liquidations above $1.3 billion: how leverage accelerated the decline

The real driver overnight was the derivatives market. According to CoinGlass data cited by CoinDesk, futures positions worth more than $1.3 billion were forcibly closed within 24 hours. Around $677 million of that was in bitcoin. Almost $500 million in liquidations occurred in the single hour in which bitcoin slipped below $70,000. The largest individual position, according to CoinDesk, was a long bet on bitcoin worth more than $31 million on the Hyperliquid platform.

A liquidation is the forced sale of a leveraged position by the exchange as soon as the collateral posted no longer covers the losses. Anyone betting on rising prices with tenfold leverage loses their stake after a decline of just under 10 percent. The exchange then sells automatically, and precisely these sales push the price down further. The next group of positions reaches its threshold, and the chain reaction continues.

This mechanism explains why a decline in the crypto market often turns out sharper in a short space of time than the news alone would suggest. The more capital is tied up in leveraged long positions, the more fuel there is for such a downward spiral. CoinDesk explicitly attributes the force of the decline to crowded leveraged positions.

Middle East reports and bond yields: the triggers cited

CoinDesk cites reports of a renewed military escalation in the Middle East as the trigger for the sell-off. According to those reports, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said via the Tasnim news agency that they had destroyed a US early-warning radar in Bahrain, in response to an air strike on a telecommunications tower in Sirik. The oil price barely reacted, according to CoinDesk: US benchmark WTI traded around $88, slightly below Thursday's high.

Bloomberg also attributes the decline to rising bond yields. Higher yields make safe fixed-income investments more attractive and weigh on assets that generate no regular income of their own, including bitcoin and gold.

The market was already under pressure on Thursday. The resignation of Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang had weighed on technology stocks and pushed bitcoin below $72,000. The crypto market thus reacted for the second time in 24 hours to news from outside the industry.

IBIT ETF outflows: institutional investors have been withdrawing money since late October

Besides the derivatives market, the bitcoin price has lacked demand from the large funds for weeks. On November 11 alone, around $300 million flowed out of the US spot bitcoin ETFs, according to Crypto Briefing, including $269.7 million from BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). IBIT has thus recorded outflows on seven consecutive trading days, totalling around $1.66 billion since October 30.

A spot ETF buys real bitcoin for every new share and sells them when investors redeem shares. When money flows out over several days, this creates steady selling pressure in the spot market that works independently of retail sentiment. Figures for Thursday, November 12, were not yet complete on Friday morning.

Fear & Greed Index falls to 20: sentiment tips into extreme fear

The Fear & Greed Index from alternative.me stands at 20 points on Friday, in the "Extreme Fear" range. On Thursday it was still at 28, and in the days before it fluctuated between 25 and 32. The index combines volatility, trading volume, social media sentiment and bitcoin dominance into a single value between 0 and 100.

A reading of 20 describes a market in which fear clearly prevails. On its own, it says nothing about whether the bottom has been reached. How long such phases lasted in the past is shown in our overview of the Fear & Greed Index in phases of extreme fear.

Bitcoin price since Thursday: from $72,000 to $69,000

On Thursday afternoon cryptoticker.io reported the decline below $72,000 after Jensen Huang's resignation. Since then bitcoin has lost a further $3,000 or so. The $70,000 mark, which on Thursday was still regarded as the next support, did not hold overnight.

What is new since then is the wave of liquidations above $1.3 billion and the reports from the Middle East. The ETF outflows, by contrast, have been running for some time; they are not a new factor but reinforce an existing trend.

Bitcoin price levels: $62,800 below, $73,000 above

To put the price into context, the editorial team analysed daily closing prices for the past twelve months from CoinGecko data, 366 values in total. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 13, 2026.

On the upside, the first level is around $73,000. That is where the average of the last 200 daily closes runs, a line many market participants use to determine the trend. The 50-day average, at around $80,600, is considerably higher. As long as the price trades below both lines, the short-term trend is considered to point downwards.

On the downside, the August low marks the next zone. On August 17 bitcoin closed at around $62,800, after which the price turned upwards. Lower still was the year-to-date low from July 1, with a daily close of just over $58,500. Around 9 percent separates today's price from the August low.

The autumn interim high was about $86,600 on September 22. Measured against that, bitcoin has lost around 20 percent in just under eight weeks.

US producer prices on Friday: the next date for the bitcoin price

The next significant date follows on Friday afternoon. According to the release calendar of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Department of Labor will publish producer prices for October at 8:30 a.m. local time, or 2:30 p.m. CET. If they come in higher than expected, that could dampen expectations of further rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve and push yields higher still.

The date matters for the bitcoin price because the market has reacted sensitively to interest rate and inflation data in recent days. The next Federal Reserve meeting follows on December 9 and 10.

Leverage and custody: where the greatest risk lies now

Anyone holding leveraged positions carries the greatest risk in this phase. A tight liquidation price can be reached with the next move of just a few percent, and in fast markets the exchange often closes the position at a worse price than expected. A look at the liquidation price in your own exchange app shows how much distance remains to the current price. Lower leverage or more collateral widens that gap.

Anyone holding bitcoin without leverage cannot be liquidated. What matters most then is where the coins are held. Buying through a provider licensed under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA, offers audited structures; whether a provider is licensed can be checked in the public register of the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA. Our comparison of crypto exchanges gives an overview of licensed providers. Anyone planning to hold their coins for the long term can transfer them to their own hardware wallet and is then unaffected by an exchange outage.

Selling at a loss can have tax consequences depending on where you live, so keep a record of purchase date, purchase price and sale proceeds; our comparison of crypto tax software shows which tools pull this data directly from your exchange accounts.

Bitcoin below $70,000: only above $73,000 does the picture change

The night into Friday showed how quickly leveraged positions amplify a decline. As long as bitcoin trades below the 200-day average at around $73,000 and the ETF outflows continue, the price lacks a tailwind. The August low at around $62,800 is the next zone where it will become clear whether buyers return. Three steps help put this into perspective:

1. Check your leverage: if the liquidation price is too close to the market, reduce the position or add collateral. Without leverage, you buy bitcoin directly on a regulated crypto exchange.
2. Settle custody: coins you hold for longer are safer in your own wallet; suitable devices are listed in our hardware wallet comparison.
3. Keep tax records: note the date and price of every sale, or use one of the crypto tax tools.

(As of November 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)