Bitcoin Price Drops Below $74,000 as Liquidations Top $1 Billion

Bitcoin’s price dropped from $75,690 to $73,477 in 15 minutes late Sunday as Nvidia’s scandal and stalled Iran talks hit thin weekend markets and liquidations exceeded $1 billion.

Fifteen Minutes on a Sunday Is All It Took

Bitcoin slid from $75,690 to $73,477 in 15 minutes late Sunday afternoon U.S. time, its lowest price since August (a 9% drop in four days). The rough patch comes after BTC breached $81,000 last Wednesday after the U.S. midterm results, but briefly dipped below $75,000 on Friday (as part of a global tech selloff).

Buyers stepped in quickly after Sunday’s flush, with bitcoin currently changing hands near $74,500 at press time.

In terms of the liquidation damage, analysts have put the figure at $1 billion in 10-15 minutes.

Who Took the Hit

Ether traders fared even worse than bitcoin traders as ETH saw $448 million in liquidations, nearly double bitcoin’s $272 million, and the single largest liquidation order, worth $48 million, was also in ETH. The asset fell below $2,100 before bouncing to around $2,140.

Individual losses were severe and onchain tracker Lookonchain reported that one ETH bull was wiped out on a 56,667 ETH long worth $118.4 million, taking total losses to $44.78 million. Popular trader Machi was liquidated again as well after losing $1.62 million on Papertrade, leaving the account down $1.14 million there even after $485,000 in rewards.

Others treated the drop as an opening, with one wallet borrowing $22 million in USDT from Aave and spending $21.55 million buying 10,000 ETH at $2,155. On Hyperliquid, a wallet that shorted Nvidia perps after the scandal broke also added a short on 200 BTC.

The selling reached the rest of the market as well, with XRP falling below $1.10 and SOL slipping under $90.

Two Headlines and a Thin Market

Pundits have linked the swing to two weekend developments:

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted an affair in a memo to staff as the company’s board opened an independent investigation into whether he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.
• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iranian demands were “outrageous” and that talks had failed to make progress.

Those headlines hit a market with little cushion, resulting in weekend markets running thin (rapid drops of this kind tend to flush leveraged longs). Moreover, the backdrop was already weak, and U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) lost about $412 million on Friday and roughly $1.28 billion for the week, and the Nasdaq fell nearly 5% last week for a fourth straight weekly decline.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index too reads 29, firmly in fear territory, and October’s 165,000-job payrolls gain has kept the risk of higher interest rates in focus.

The Levels and the Odds

Technicians now have a tight box to watch and have placed support at the 200-day average near $73,150 and resistance at the 100-day average near $77,430. Prediction markets, on the other hand, are leaning toward another leg lower, with Polymarket pricing a 67.5% chance that bitcoin dips to $72,500 in November and 46.5% for $70,000.

Bitcoin.com News examined year-end odds on Saturday, when traders gave $70,000 a 52% chance of printing before 2027. Lastly, the macro calendar leaves little room to rest as U.S. inflation data arrives on Tuesday, and earnings from AI cloud firms including Coreweave and Nebius follow this week.