Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $70,000 on Thursday as concerns about coordinated selling intensified.
Key points:
- Bitcoin has dropped below its 2021 highs for the first time since November 2024.
- Heightened volatility in gold and silver has triggered similar price moves in BTC, keeping lower downside targets firmly in focus.
- Market participants believe large players are offloading Bitcoin in a coordinated, scheduled manner.
Bitcoin slid to around $69,000 in a fresh wave of selling, marking a new cascade lower.
TradingView data showed BTC hitting a 15-month low of $69,100 on Bitstamp during the Asian trading session.
The sell-off marked Bitcoin’s first drop into the $60,000 range since early November 2024, triggering $130 million in crypto long liquidations within just four hours, according to data from CoinGlass.
Bitcoin’s move coincided with a sharp reversal in precious metals.
Gold, which had staged a brief relief bounce to $5,100 per ounce the day before, slid as low as $4,789 on Thursday before once again pushing toward the $5,000 level.
Silver was even more volatile, swinging between $90 and $73 per ounce as sharp price action dominated the session.
“$BTC has entered a key support zone,” trader CW warned in a post on X.
“If it fails to support the 69k level, another significant decline could occur.”
Earlier, traders outlined several potential downside targets for BTC, including the region around $50,000. Just below $69,000, however, sits a critical level of support — the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA).
Crypto entrepreneur Alistair Milne echoed comments from veteran trader Peter Brandt, who described Bitcoin’s recent decline as the result of “campaign selling.”
“Agree with this take. Someone enormous is unloading to a deadline,” Milne wrote in response on X.
The post compared the current sell-side pressure to past instances when the German government distributed its Bitcoin holdings into the market, suggesting coins were being “handed over to OTC desks who simply execute.” Milne added that, in his view, the selling began on Jan. 14.
Coinbase Premium Falls Below Liberation Day Lows
Coin Bureau CEO Nic Puckrin also pointed to “large selling” by whales during U.S. trading hours. As previously reported, the deeply negative Coinbase Premium—tracking the price gap between Coinbase’s BTC/USD pair and Binance’s BTC/USDT pair—signals weak U.S. demand for Bitcoin.
“The Coinbase Premium is the lowest it’s been in more than a year, even lower than after the Liberation Day tariffs,” Puckrin said.
He added that selling pressure is likely to persist until the Coinbase Premium reverses course.
Charles Edwards, founder of quantitative Bitcoin and digital asset fund Capriole Investments, said that “OG” whales were behaving as if BTC/USD were at all-time highs.
