Bitcoin falls 6% to a seven-week low near $75,500 as the AI selloff erases its election bounce

Bitcoin dropped about 6% on Thursday and touched $75,431 on Coinbase, its lowest price since mid-September, as the same selloff that hit tech stocks spilled into crypto. At 5:50 PM ET it traded at $75,528, against $80,639 a day earlier, a 6.3% fall on Coinbase's 24-hour figures. It is one more leg down in the rebound we covered on Wednesday, which this session erased.

The whole table, not just Bitcoin

Prices and 24-hour changes are last versus open from Coinbase's exchange statistics, read at about 5:50 PM ET; the percentages are our arithmetic.

The pattern is the usual one for a risk-off day: every coin fell, and the smaller and more speculative ones fell more. Ether and Cardano lost 8.5% and 9.6%, against Bitcoin's 6.3%.

What moved it

The cause is stocks, not anything inside crypto. Cointelegraph reported that Bitcoin began falling at the Wall Street open as equities reversed their post-election gains, and CoinDesk's headline put it the same way: Bitcoin tumbled as the AI trade collapsed and dragged stocks lower. By the close, the Nasdaq was down 5.5%, the S&P 500 down 4.4% and the VIX at 28.

Cointelegraph, citing CoinGlass, said about $500 million of crypto positions were liquidated in the first hour of US trading, with 24-hour liquidations near $850 million at the time of its writing. Forced closing of leveraged bets tends to speed up a drop, and it is part of why the move came fast rather than drifting.

The level traders are watching

Cointelegraph noted that Bitcoin briefly traded below its 50-week simple moving average, at $75,733 by its calculation. We read that figure from its report and did not recompute it. On Coinbase's daily candles, Thursday's low of $75,431 sits just under that line, and the day's last price of $75,528 is also below it. Traders watch a long moving average like this because it marks where buyers have stepped in before, and a close beneath it is read as a weaker trend. A single session does not settle that: the daily candle is still open until midnight UTC, so the close could land on either side.

Context matters here. Bitcoin is 7.0% below its $81,249 close of Oct. 28, and 2.9% below its Oct. 29 close of $77,780 (daily candles). The fall took it to the bottom of a month-long range rather than through a new multi-month floor. Cointelegraph also relayed a trader's comparison to May, when a stretch of rangebound trading near $80,000 later gave way to a drop to $57,000 in June. That is one analyst's chart read, not a forecast, and we cannot say it will repeat.

Who it hits

For anyone who holds crypto on margin or borrows against it, a 6% day matters more than the headline suggests: a loan with a loan-to-value limit can be margin called by a drop of this size if it was already close to the line. Bitcoin miners, already described by VanEck this week as oversold after a 35% October fall, take a second hit when the price they sell at drops while their power costs do not.

The alternative.me Fear and Greed reading was still at 50, "Neutral," when we checked. It is a daily composite, so it may not yet reflect today's drop.

What to watch next

• Whether Friday's Asia and Europe sessions steady the Nasdaq. Bitcoin has followed it all day.
• Whether the $75,000 area holds on a daily close. Cointelegraph described it as the bottom of Bitcoin's one-month trading range.
• US spot Bitcoin ETF flow numbers for Thursday, which publish after the close and will show whether holders were adding or leaving.

Live prices are on our crypto board, and the full market picture is in Markets.

Sources: Coinbase Exchange API; Cointelegraph; CoinDesk (headline only; its page was unavailable to us); alternative.me. Information, not investment advice.