Bitcoin Plummets to $72,700—Are Buyers Sparking a Surprising Reversal or Just Another Trap?

So, Bitcoin just dropped under $73,000 on November 12, marking yet another chapter in this relentless crypto market slide we’ve been watching all week. It barely flirted above Tuesday’s low before dipping to its weakest since August 20—down nearly 10% from just a little over a week ago. If you thought the bleeding might stop, guess again: traders who dared to bet on a bounce have been wiped out, forced out of their positions repeatedly—like déjà vu with a harsh sting. Meanwhile, altcoins are catching the worst of it, losing double-digit percentages as leverage magnifies every move. What’s got the market this rattled? Four heavy blows in as many days, from high-profile investigations to macroeconomic jitters and ETF outflows, each dealin’ another shove downward. The real kicker? Despite all this carnage, traders keep diving back in with borrowed money, making the question unavoidable: Are we at a market bottom, or just setting up for yet another leg down? If you think fear alone signals a floor, history says think again. As Bitcoin teeters around its crucial moving averages, the next move might not be so predictable. So, buckle up—this ride isn’t over yet. LEARN MORE.

Bitcoin fell below $73,000 on Thursday, November 12, extending a week-long crypto market crash in which traders who bet on a rebound were forced out of their positions again and again.

Bitcoin touched $72,735 on Binance, a hair above Tuesday’s $72,727 low and its weakest price since August 20. It trades at $72,969, down 9.4% from the November 4 close.

BREAKING: $BTC just fell to its lowest level since August.

Over $210 million worth of longs liquidated in the past 24 hours.

The dumping continues… pic.twitter.com/R7NVGivFnD

— Crypto Rover (@cryptorover) November 12, 2026

The altcoins are doing worse. Over seven days, Ethereum has lost 16.4%, Solana 14.7% and XRP 21.3%. CoinGecko values the whole crypto market at $2.42 trillion on Thursday, and Bitcoin makes up 60.5% of it.

Leverage made every drop bigger. More than $1 billion of bets were liquidated on Monday alone, almost all of them longs, the positions that profit only if prices rise. Liquidation means the exchange closes a trade by force once the trader’s collateral runs out, and those forced sales push the price down further.

So is this the flush that ends the crypto market slide, or is there more to come? The data has an answer, and it is not a comforting one.

Four Shocks in Four Days Hit the Crypto Market Crash

The sell-off had no single cause. Four pieces of bad news landed one after another:

• Monday, November 9: Reports of a probe involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and stalled U.S.-Iran talks hit risk assets. More than $1.15 billion of crypto positions were liquidated, about $1.04 billion of them longs.
• Tuesday, November 10: A hot inflation report raised the odds that the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates in December. Another $723 million was liquidated, roughly $570 million from longs.
• Wednesday, November 11: MSCI said it will drop Strategy, the biggest corporate Bitcoin holder, from its stock indexes. After the bell, Nvidia fell 9% as its board weighed removing Huang.
• All week: Investors pulled money from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, funds that hold the coin itself, on seven of the first eight trading days of November, about $1.88 billion in all.

Each hit forced out more leveraged longs across the crypto market. Thursday’s slide continued the pattern on a smaller scale. We added up every forced closure in Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP and Dogecoin futures on OKX, one of the largest exchanges, over the past 24 hours. Longs lost $27.6 million, against $12.3 million for shorts.

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Traders Keep Buying the Dip With Leverage

Big liquidations usually clear out the crowd. This time, the crowd came back.

• More traders are long: On OKX, 3.11 accounts hold Bitcoin longs for every account that is short. That ratio was 2.43 on November 4, before the slide began.
• Longs still pay: The funding rate, a fee that keeps futures prices close to spot, is positive. Longs pay shorts 0.0092% every eight hours on OKX, about 6% a year over the past week.
• Open bets haven’t shrunk: Open interest on OKX’s Bitcoin futures, the value of all open positions, stands at $3.85 billion, the same as before Monday’s flush.

In plain terms, traders keep buying every dip with borrowed money. That leaves fuel for another round of forced selling if Bitcoin drops through the next support. Bottoms tend to come when funding turns negative and open interest falls hard, a sign that leveraged buyers have given up.

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Crypto Market Sentiment: Fear at 28 Has Not Marked a Bottom Before

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which scores market mood from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed), reads 28 today. Fear is usually read as a buy signal. The history says it is not enough on its own.

We checked every day since February 2018 when the index sat at 28 or lower, 943 days in all, and where Bitcoin stood later.

• 30 days later: Bitcoin was higher 55% of the time, by a median 1.1%.
• 90 days later: It was higher only 48% of the time, with a median loss of 2.8%.
• Any day, for comparison: Bitcoin was higher 90 days later 54% of the time, by a median 3.6%.

This year’s two bottoms came with real panic. When Bitcoin hit $60,000 on February 6, the index read 9. When it bottomed at $57,800 on July 1, it read 11. Today’s 28 is fear, but it is not capitulation, the moment sellers give up all at once.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The 2026 Range Puts the Next Floor at $69,600

On the weekly chart, where each candle covers one week, Bitcoin has spent 2026 in a wide range. The low is $57,800 from July 1 and the high is $87,396 from late September. The midpoint is $72,598, almost exactly where Bitcoin trades now.

The price lost its 50-week exponential moving average (EMA), an average that gives recent prices more weight, at $78,219. Its 200-week EMA sits at $69,597. Bitcoin closed below that line for 16 weeks this year, in February and March and again from June to mid-August, and both of the year’s bottoms formed during those stretches.

• Resistance: $78,219, the 50-week EMA, then $82,850, the May high, and $87,396, the top of the range.
• Support: $69,597, the 200-week EMA, then $65,000, the March low. Below that, $60,000, the February low, and $57,800, the July bottom.

BTCUSDT 1W chart. Source: TradingView.

For the crypto market, three signs would say the bottom is close: the fear index dropping toward the teens, funding turning negative, and open interest falling as longs give up. None has shown up yet. Until they do, the 200-week EMA at $69,597 is the line that separates a pullback inside the 2026 range from a retest of the summer lows.

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Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article aims to deliver accurate and timely information but should not be taken as financial or investment advice. Since market conditions can change rapidly, we encourage you to verify information on your own and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.

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Daniel Frances is a technical writer and Web3 educator specializing in macroeconomics and DeFi mechanics. A crypto native since 2017, Daniel leverages his background in on-chain analytics to author evidence-based reports and deep-dive guides. He holds certifications from The Blockchain Council, and is dedicated to providing “information gain” that cuts through market hype to find real-world blockchain utility.