Key points

  • Bitcoin closed Thursday at $71,370.7 on Kraken, below its 200-day average near $73,082 on our count. It is the first daily close under that line since 18 Aug.
  • Asia then pushed it through $70,000 in the 02:00 UTC hour and down to $68,500.0 at about 03:45 UTC, the lowest price since 19 Aug. It was near $68,620 at 04:47 UTC.
  • Deribit’s weekly options expire at 08:00 UTC with about 33,400 BTC open. About 8,900 BTC of that is puts struck above the current price.

The line broke on the close. The round number broke in the dark.

On Wednesday this column said the 200-day still held. It held for one more day. Thursday’s slide, which Thursday’s US-open Market Read caught at $71,360, ended with a close about $1,700 under the average.

Kraken’s Thursday candle ran from $73,928.5 at the open to a low of $71,022.7. Friday’s has run from $71,370.7 to $68,500.0 so far. Coinbase showed $68,610 at 04:47 UTC.

That is about 8% off Monday’s open of $74,742.4.

A close, then a number

A close below a widely watched average does not force anyone to sell. It changes who is comfortable holding.

The hourly closes after midnight tell the story in four prints: $71,041.1, $70,863.7, $70,171.1, $68,890.0. No bounce made it through an hour.

The first trade under $70,000 came in the 02:00 UTC hour, at $69,860.0. The next hour took another $1,360 off the low.

Ether followed the same path. It touched $1,916.13 on Kraken, its lowest since 19 Aug, and was near $1,923 at 04:47 UTC.

Solana was near $78.27. XRP dipped to $0.9967 and was back near $1.003.

The dollar was firm in the background. The US dollar index traded above 103, its highest since April 2025, CoinDesk reported. That is a backdrop, not a single cause.

Who got carried out

More than $1.3 billion of crypto futures positions were liquidated over 24 hours, $677 million of it in bitcoin, CoinDesk reported, citing CoinGlass. It said nearly $500 million went around the break of $70,000. Here is how a liquidation works.

CoinGlass counts liquidations across many venues. On Deribit, the book barely moved: bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $687 million at 04:47 UTC, against about $689 million at 20:42 UTC on Thursday.

Funding was about 0.0028% per eight hours on Deribit and on OKX, positive and small. Nobody is paying up to be short.

DVOL, Deribit’s 30-day implied volatility gauge, rose from about 39.7 at 20:00 UTC on Thursday to about 40.7 at 04:00 UTC. That is a nudge, not a panic.

The expiry at 08:00 UTC

Friday’s 13NOV26 expiry holds about 33,370 BTC, with a put/call ratio of about 0.47.

Put simply, a put is the right to sell at a set price. If bitcoin stays below that price at expiry, the put pays out; the further below, the more it pays.

The biggest calls, about 8,300 BTC at $81,000 and 5,200 BTC at $84,000, are now far out of reach. The puts are the live side: about 1,760 BTC at $72,000, 1,670 BTC at $70,000 and 1,410 BTC at $68,000.

Deribit settles the contracts against the average of its bitcoin index over the 30 minutes before 08:00 UTC, so the price at 07:30 matters as much as the price at 08:00.

Watch $70,000 from below, not above.

Chart to watch

  • Kraken daily candles since August with the 200-day average: Thursday’s close sits about $1,700 under the line, the first such close since 18 Aug.
  • Below: $68,500.0, today’s low, then the $68,000 put strike. A daily close under $68,500 would be the lowest close since 19 Aug.
  • Above: $70,000, then the 200-day near $73,082. A close back above it would undo Thursday’s break. The 50-day average is near $80,860, and $84,250, the line this desk uses for the Brief mood, is about $15,600 away.

On the calendar (UTC / CET)

  • Fri 13 Nov, 08:00 UTC (09:00 CET): Deribit weekly bitcoin options expiry, about 33,400 BTC.
  • Fri 13 Nov, 13:30 UTC (14:30 CET): US producer prices for October, per the BLS schedule. Gemini’s third-quarter results call starts at the same time.
  • Fri 13 Nov: US spot ETF flow data for Thursday, 12 Nov. On Wednesday, US spot bitcoin ETFs lost $299.8 million on 11 Nov, Farside data show.

Overnight, the US moved to seize $1.2 billion of the Binance hack proceeds, the Justice Department said.

As of 04:47 UTC (05:47 CET), bitcoin was trading near $68,620 on Kraken and ether near $1,923.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.