Bitcoin Slips Under 200-Week Average as US Buyers Go Quiet

Bitcoin dropped as low as $67,653 overnight, its lowest level since Aug. 19, and slipped below its 200-week moving average for the first time since August, CoinMarketCap data show. The coin broke under $70,000 late Thursday in New York and hit the low a few hours later before clawing back part of the drop. By 10:28 a.m. ET Friday it traded at $68,488.

US buyers aren't showing up. Spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $284 million on Thursday alone, stretching the outflow streak to six sessions and a total of roughly $1.72 billion, per Farside Investors data. Glassnode said the Coinbase premium — the gap between Coinbase and offshore exchanges — has stayed negative throughout the slide from September's high, meaning heavy US buying is absent.

Leverage did the rest of the damage. About $1.06 billion in positions were liquidated across crypto markets in the past day, most of it overnight, according to CoinGlass, as forced closes added fresh selling to a falling market. Checkonchain's James Check put numbers on the retreat: over $680 million in realized losses were locked in by investors selling in a panic on Thursday. Higher yields aren't helping either, with the 10-year Treasury above 5.1% since Tuesday's inflation data.

The 200-week line smooths weekly closes over roughly a full cycle and is treated as the long-term trend divider. It gave way briefly this summer — Bitcoin closed below it three times between late June and mid-August, winning it back within two weeks each time. Bitfinex laid out the stakes: a weekly close above about $68,000 on Sunday keeps the long-term trend bullish, while a close below would mark the fourth since June.

Smaller buyers are fading too. Retail demand is shrinking by nearly 10% a month, CryptoQuant contributor Darkfost wrote on X, though he reads the pullback as a contrarian buy signal. Bitfinex analysts warned that any bounce meets sellers, since recent buyers paid about $75,400 on average. K33 head of research Vetle Lunde took the other side: “This is a great place to buy BTC… Do not press the red panic button.”