Bitcoin lost more than 6% within hours on Thursday and dropped to $75,463 on Bitstamp. That is its lowest price since September 16. The trigger was a sharp sell-off in US stocks that wiped out the entire post-election bounce.
On Wednesday Bitcoin was trading above $80,000 and the market was celebrating. Less than a day later the whole move was undone.
What happened at the Wall Street open
According to Cointelegraph, selling began right as the US session started. The S&P 500 lost about 2.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite slid more than 4% to its lowest level since July 29. Decrypt adds that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell roughly 8%, CoreWeave and Nebius dropped by double digits, and Tesla shed almost 9.5%.
Oil added to the nerves. WTI climbed back above $90 a barrel and Brent approached $97 after reports of fresh strikes on tankers in the Middle East. Crypto got caught in the same wave. Ethereum fell about 7% to $2,256, and around 90% of the top 100 coins traded in the red.
Liquidations: $428 million in an hour, $850 million in a day
Leveraged traders took the worst of it. Decrypt counted about $428 million in long positions closed within one hour. CoinGlass data cited by Cointelegraph shows almost $500 million liquidated in the first hour of US trading, with the 24-hour total nearing $850 million.
That second figure matters. Wednesday's rally leaned heavily on traders closing losing shorts, not on a wave of new buyers. Once that fuel burned off, price returned to where it stood before the election.
Why politics and AI hit at the same time
The Democratic win in the Senate and the House first scared investors who expected tougher oversight. Then a different effect showed up. Voters in at least 29 US jurisdictions backed limits on data-center construction. UBS estimates that pauses could affect up to 30% of planned US capacity additions in 2028, as reported by Reuters.
Ted Parkhill, chief executive of Incline Investment Management, told Reuters the market is moving from the promise of AI to the price of AI. That matters for bitcoin, which has lately traded in step with tech stocks. Mohamed El-Erian, for his part, doubts that a new balance in Congress will really slow the tech sector, and called the day's weakness in tech unsurprising.
Where price holds technically
Bitcoin pressed against the bottom of its one-month range. Beneath it sits the 50-week simple moving average, now at $75,733, and price has already poked through it from above. Buyers need that line to hold.
Trader Rekt Capital pointed back to May, when a range around $80,000 ended in a breakdown and new lows near $57,000 in late June. It is not a forecast, just a script the market has already played this year.
What the next few weeks could bring
- Hold scenario. Price reclaims the 50-week average and liquidations flush out leveraged sellers.
- A break of $75,000 opens the way to deeper lows, especially if the Nasdaq fails to stabilize.
- The political factor stays: the new Congress only convenes in January, so the Clarity Act is unlikely to move soon.
Jordan Watson, a portfolio manager at Tandem Investment Advisors, warned that post-election equity gains should not be read as an "all-clear" signal, and the day proved him right. Anyone who decides to lock in profit and sell bitcoin for hryvnia should compare exchanger rates at the moment of the deal, because on swings like this the spread between offers widens fast.
The day in numbers
One session erased what the market built on Wednesday: -6% for Bitcoin, -4% for the Nasdaq, almost $850 million in liquidations. Crypto now trades as a risk asset tied to AI stocks, and its next few days depend on whether the tech sector holds. The $75,700 area is now the line both longs and shorts will watch.
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