Bitcoin fell below $74,000 during a sharp weekend selloff before recovering toward $75,000 on November 9, as more than $1 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated. The move pushed Bitcoin to its lowest level since August and concentrated losses among traders positioned for higher prices, extending a volatile week already shaped by ETF withdrawals, political uncertainty and broader pressure on risk assets. Reuters recorded Bitcoin falling as low as approximately $73,708 late Sunday.
The decline coincided with fresh uncertainty surrounding Nvidia and U.S.-Iran diplomacy, although the available evidence does not establish either development as the direct cause of Bitcoin’s selloff. Crypto markets had already been weakening following the U.S. midterms, the October 29 Binance security breach and persistent fund redemptions. U.S. Bitcoin and Ether ETFs had shed about $530 million on November 5, adding to the weaker liquidity backdrop before the weekend decline.
Long Liquidations Amplify Bitcoin Selloff
CoinGlass data cited during the initial selloff showed more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency derivatives liquidated over 24 hours, with approximately $913 million coming from long positions. The heavy concentration in longs indicates that leveraged bullish positioning amplified the decline once prices moved against traders. Later snapshots varied as the rolling 24-hour window advanced, illustrating why liquidation totals should be treated as time-specific measurements rather than fixed event totals.
Bitcoin itself accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars in forced closures, while Ether experienced even larger liquidations in some snapshots. Liquidations occur when exchanges automatically close leveraged positions whose remaining collateral can no longer satisfy margin requirements. A dense cluster of forced long closures can intensify an existing decline by creating additional market selling, but the liquidation data does not establish what initially caused traders to begin reducing exposure.
The broader crypto market also lost substantial value during the move. CoinGecko data showed global cryptocurrency capitalization falling by more than 3% during the 24-hour period, placing the contraction near $90 billion depending on the precise observation time. Market-cap losses are valuation changes rather than $80 billion or $90 billion of capital literally leaving the market, since falling token prices revalue the entire circulating supply.
Bitcoin’s low also brought it close to a technical level already watched before the weekend. Reuters calculated the 200-day moving average at roughly $73,188 on November 4, meaning the latest trough approached but remained above that reference point. The subsequent rebound toward $75,000 coincided with Bitcoin holding near that longer-term average, but the price action alone does not prove that technical buying caused the recovery.
Nvidia and Iran Add to Risk Uncertainty
Nvidia introduced another source of uncertainty over the weekend. CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged that he had been unfaithful to his wife, while the company separately announced an independent investigation following reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. Nvidia explicitly said it has no reason to believe company secrets or U.S. national security were compromised, and Huang agreed to cooperate with the board investigation.
Reuters reported Nvidia shares falling more than 4% in premarket trading on November 9 as investors assessed the investigation. Three U.S. House committee chairmen had also requested a November 18 briefing from Huang concerning his interactions with a person publicly reported as a Chinese intelligence asset. The developments created a governance and national-security overhang for one of the world’s most valuable technology companies, but they do not independently demonstrate that Nvidia news triggered Bitcoin liquidations.
Crypto had already shown substantial sensitivity to technology-sector weakness days earlier. The previous AI-stock selloff prompted questions over whether crypto increasingly trades like leveraged technology exposure, while Bitcoin had simultaneously been absorbing the consequences of the post-midterm shift in U.S. crypto policy expectations. Those overlapping conditions make a single-catalyst explanation for the November 9 move particularly difficult to support.
The geopolitical picture was similarly more nuanced than a simple collapse in negotiations. Reuters reported that Iran defended a proposal to resume talks within two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected some Iranian conditions as “outrageous and ridiculous.” Meanwhile, global markets on Monday reacted to signs that diplomatic efforts could still limit further military escalation, with oil prices declining. The Iran story therefore contributed to an uncertain macro backdrop, but negotiations had not definitively ended when Bitcoin was recovering from its weekend low.
The selloff also occurred less than two weeks after the Binance security breach reached approximately $6.3 billion, another event that had already weakened confidence and liquidity across crypto markets. What can be measured directly on November 9 is the price decline and the unusually large long-liquidation wave; assigning that move primarily to Nvidia or Iran would require stronger causal evidence than the market data currently provides.
