Bitcoin falls 6% to $75,463, a 7-week low, as Nasdaq tech sell-off wipes out midterm gains

Bitcoin price today fell more than 6% to $75,463 on Thursday 5 November, its lowest level since 16 September, as US stocks reversed the rally that followed the midterm elections, Cointelegraph reported from TradingView data on Bitstamp. At the interbank dollar rate of about Rs 276.67, that low is roughly Rs 20.88 million for one bitcoin.

The fall came at the Wall Street open, which in Pakistan was 7:30 pm PKT.

What happened

• Stocks turned: the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost more than 4% and the S&P 500 fell 2.7%, after two days of gains on the Democrats' sweep of the House and Senate. Traders sold technology and AI shares on worries that a Democratic Congress will be less friendly to data centres and AI spending.
• Leverage was flushed out: close to $500 million of crypto positions were liquidated in the first hour of US trading, and 24-hour liquidations neared $850 million, according to CoinGlass figures cited by Cointelegraph.
• The rest of the market fell harder: ether was down about 7% at $2,250 (about Rs 622,500), and solana, XRP, cardano and dogecoin each lost between 5% and 7% on the day.
• Oil rose: Brent climbed about 2.5% towards $97 a barrel on reports of new attacks on tankers in the Middle East, which added to the risk-off mood.

The level traders are watching

Bitcoin briefly slipped below its 50-week moving average, about $75,733, a level that has acted as support. Analyst Rekt Capital noted that bitcoin is repeating a pattern from May, when weeks of trading around $80,000 ended in a slide to $57,000 by late June. That is one reading of a chart, not a forecast.

Only on Tuesday and Wednesday, bitcoin had climbed back above $80,000 on the election result. Thursday's drop took it back to the bottom of its one-month range.

What it means for you in Pakistan

• Prices in rupees move with two things: the dollar price of bitcoin and the rupee's rate. Our bitcoin price page tracks the dollar price with history, and the currency converter does the rupee sum at today's rate.
• Leveraged trading is where the losses were. Liquidations hit traders who borrowed to bet on price moves: a 6% move against a 15x leveraged position wipes it out.

This is a market report, not investment advice.