Bitcoin Drops Below $70,000 for First Time Since August as Over $1 Billion in Long Positions Liquidated

Bitcoin fell sharply on Friday, breaking below $70,000 for the first time since August and touching an intraday low of $67,500 before recovering slightly to around $69,140. The sell-off marked a decline of roughly 20% from the cryptocurrency's September rebound high, putting Bitcoin on track for its sixth consecutive weekly loss.

More than $1 billion in crypto positions were forcibly closed within a 12-hour window, with CoinGlass data showing $870 million in bullish bets liquidated in the prior 24 hours alone. Analysts attributed the cascade to a "concentrated liquidation" event compounded by "weakening" demand from retail and institutional participants.

The broader backdrop amplified the pressure: rising rate expectations, a selloff in tech stocks including uncertainty around NVIDIA, and a Microsoft outage all contributed to a risk-off mood that hit speculative assets hard. Some technical oscillators indicated that selling pressure had reached stretched levels, leaving open the possibility of a short-term bounce, though the structural trend remained decisively bearish.