Key points

  • Bitcoin fell to $71,360 on Kraken in the 14:45 UTC quarter-hour, its lowest price since 20 Aug, and was near $71,510 at 14:53 UTC, down about 3.3% from its UTC open.
  • The first level to watch is $70,000, where Friday’s Deribit expiry carries one of its largest put positions.
  • A move back above about $73,100, the 200-day average on our Kraken data, would undo the morning; a sustained break under $70,000 would bring $68,000, the next level Wintermute has flagged, into view.

Nvidia’s board lost its chief executive overnight. Crypto lost its floor this morning.

Bitcoin traded near $71,510 on Kraken at 14:53 UTC, down from a UTC open of $73,929 and about $150 above the day’s $71,360 low. Coinbase showed $71,486, with a 24-hour range of $71,380 to $74,737.

Ether did the symbolic damage. It fell to $1,981 on Kraken, its first trade under $2,000 since 19 Aug, and was near $1,998, down about 2.7% on the UTC day.

What drove the session

Nvidia said on Thursday that Jensen Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. Chief financial officer Colette Kress becomes interim CEO, and Harvey Jones is the board’s first chair.

The stock took it hard. Yahoo Finance data showed Nvidia near $162.69 at 14:52 UTC, down about 6.4% from Wednesday’s close after trading as low as $148.80, about 14% down.

The wider tape did not follow. The Nasdaq Composite was down only about 0.3% and the S&P 500 about 0.2%. Crypto stocks did worse: Strategy fell about 7.3% after MSCI’s decision to drop Strategy from its indexes, while Coinbase lost about 3.7% and BlackRock’s IBIT about 4.3%.

Initial jobless claims rose 9,000 to 200,000, the Labor Department said, and the US 10-year yield was near 5.04%. The dollar index briefly topped 103; gold fell about 2.5% to near $3,900.

Put simply, bitcoin is falling on its own weakness as much as on Nvidia. US spot bitcoin funds lost $299.8 million on 11 Nov, the latest ETF Desk showed, and BlackRock’s IBIT has now posted nine straight days of outflows.

Sellers leaned on the open. The heaviest quarter-hour on Kraken was 14:15 to 14:30 UTC, just before the cash open, when about 280 BTC traded and the price fell from $72,354 to $71,771.

Derivatives

About $656 million of crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, more than $555 million of them longs, across more than 122,000 traders, Bitcoin.com reported at 14:33 UTC, citing CoinGlass. About $222 million was wiped out in one hour, CryptoPotato reported.

Leverage has not left. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual carried about $691 million of open interest at 14:53 UTC, against about $684 million at 10:48 UTC.

Funding was 0.0005% per eight hours on Deribit and 0.0073% on OKX, so longs still pay a little to stay in. For the mechanics, see how a liquidation works.

Options are getting more nervous. Deribit’s DVOL index rose to about 40.3 in the 14:00 UTC hour from 39.0 at 11:00 UTC.

Friday’s weekly expiry, at 08:00 UTC, holds about 33,250 BTC of open interest. Its biggest put strikes are $72,000, $70,000 and $68,000, each with about 1,700 to 1,900 BTC.

The levels

The level to watch is $70,000, the round number with one of Friday’s largest put positions.

A sustained break below it would bring $68,000 into view, the next level Wintermute flagged in a note cited by CoinDesk. Above, $73,100 to $73,450, the 200-day average and Sunday night’s low, is the first hurdle; Wintermute said only a move back above $80,000 would change its cautious view.

The alternative read: the dollar trade may be crowded. LMAX Group’s Joel Kruger said in a note cited by CoinDesk that much of the expected December Fed hike is already priced, and that if the dollar stalls bitcoin could lead a recovery.

For Tuesday’s inflation-day swing, see Tuesday’s CPI session.

As of 14:53 UTC, BTC is trading near $71,510. Not financial advice.

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