Bitcoin drops 9% as dollar hits 19-month high and yen nears 160

Bitcoin traded at $68,542 at 12:05 p.m. ET on Friday, CoinMarketCap data show, after touching $67,653 overnight — its weakest level since Aug. 19. The coin has given up about 9% since the Nov. 6 close, roughly twice the drop in gold over the same stretch. It also broke below its 200-day average on Thursday.

The pressure came from the dollar side. The US dollar index traded at its highest since April 2025 on Friday, and the 10-year Treasury yield sat at 5.13%, its highest since late October. Producer prices rose 6.5% in the year to October, the largest jump since November 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, and QCP Capital noted a December Fed hike is now fully priced.

Japan is the nearest check on the dollar's run. The yen weakened past 160 per dollar on Thursday, and Tokyo warned against one-sided moves, per QCP. The firm framed the next turn as whether Japanese authorities step in before the Fed raises rates again.

Gold's slide stretches back further. December gold futures settled at $3,885.30 on Thursday, about 27% below their record close in January, Yahoo Finance data show. Hedgeye's Keith McCullough questioned how many investors were actually positioned for the dollar's rise and the exit from gold and Bitcoin. Investor Anthony Pompliano put it bluntly: AI and bitcoin are one big trade now.

The numbers back that up. Bitcoin's daily returns over the past 30 days track the Nasdaq with a correlation of 0.69, versus 0.38 against gold. Stocks held up anyway — the Nasdaq fell Friday but stayed positive for the week, and about $13 billion flowed into US ETFs on Thursday, with nearly all the largest inflows going to equity funds, Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas wrote.

10x Research called the 10-year yield's move the most unusual on its weekly macro grid and warned that rates at these levels put a ceiling on valuations. CrossBorder Capital's Michael Howell, writing in June, said the Fed is the bigger driver for Bitcoin while China's central bank matters more for gold.