Bitcoin falls below $72,000 as $70,000 comes into focus

Bitcoin has fallen below $72,000 on Nov. 12, losing another layer of support as its daily chart shows prices slipping outside the lower Bollinger Band and its weekly recovery continues to unravel. BTC traded near $71,421 in the daily snapshot, down 3.50% for the session. Bitcoin fell below its 20-week and 50-week simple moving averages. The liquidation heatmap showed large remaining leverage concentrations above the market. Positive weekly money flow offered a counterpoint to the weakening price structure.

TradingView’s Binance BTC/USDT chart showed an intraday low of $71,255 at press time, following a session high of $74,217. The move carried Bitcoin below $71,500, a level trader Jesse Olson had flagged as vulnerable to further selling. In a Nov. 12 post, Olson said Bitcoin had reached $71,500 and was breaking below his third target. “Long liquidation clusters could speed up the move,” he wrote. The decline followed several unsuccessful attempts to regain ground during the week. On the one-week CoinGlass heatmap, Bitcoin repeatedly formed lower recovery peaks before its latest fall through $73,000 and $72,000.

Bitcoin drops below its lower daily Bollinger Band

At $71,421, Bitcoin was trading below the daily lower Bollinger Band at $71,978. Its 20-day simple moving average, which forms the middle band, stood at $77,338, leaving price roughly 7.7% below that reference. Both the middle and lower bands were pointing down. Bitcoin’s recent candles had followed the lower edge of the envelope as the recovery from its summer lows gave way to another run of selling. A move outside the lower band can accompany a stretched decline, but the chart had not yet shown a sustained return inside it. A recovery above roughly $72,000 would bring price back toward the band, while the falling 20-day average remained considerably higher.

Daily Average Directional Index stood at 23.30 and had begun turning upward. Alongside the falling price, the reading suggested the downward trend was gathering strength. ADX itself measures trend strength without identifying its direction. Earlier in the week, crypto.news reported that inflation fueled crypto liquidations as Bitcoin slipped below $73,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ October release showed headline consumer prices rising 0.4% for the month and core prices climbing 0.3%.

Weekly support gives way above the $68,000 average

The weekly chart placed Bitcoin near $71,453, down 4.54% from its weekly opening price. It was below the 20-week SMA at $74,220 and the 50-week SMA at $75,157, leaving both averages overhead as potential resistance during a rebound. Recovering that $74,200–$75,200 area would reverse the break beneath the two averages. At the snapshot, however, the weekly candle still had more than three days remaining, so its final closing position was unsettled. Below the market, $70,000 was the nearest major round-number reference, followed by the 200-week SMA around $68,013. Reaching the latter would require a further decline of roughly 4.8% from the weekly snapshot price.

Weekly Chaikin Money Flow remained positive at 0.10 despite the price decline. The reading suggested buying pressure persisted within the indicator’s lookback period, providing a less bearish signal than the lost moving averages. It had not prevented Bitcoin from reaching fresh weekly lows.

Leverage remains overhead as traders compare the 2023 pullback

CoinGlass’s heatmap showed prominent remaining liquidation concentrations around $76,300–$76,700 and $77,300–$77,600, with another visible band near $75,600. Below the latest price, concentrations were thinner and more scattered toward $70,000. The map showed where leveraged positions could face liquidation if price reached those levels. Its colored bands represented estimated exposure, separate from completed liquidations. Persistent leverage had already drawn concern in Bitfinex Alpha’s Nov. 11 market update. Futures open interest rose 3.3% between Nov. 8 and Nov. 11 while Bitcoin fell 2.6%, the analysts said. They identified weak buying alongside $2.22 billion in withdrawals from US spot Bitcoin ETFs across eight sessions starting Oct. 30. Bitfinex placed the short-term holder cost basis at $75,717, slightly above the weekly moving-average resistance zone. Its analysis estimated that 1.6 million BTC acquired between $75,000 and $80,000 was being held at a loss, leaving a pool of recent buyers who could sell as prices approached their purchase levels.

Trader Daan Crypto Trades offered a historical comparison in his Nov. 12 post, placing the correction alongside Bitcoin’s first major pullback after its 2023 bear-market recovery. His chart aligned the earlier banking-crisis pullback with the current retracement, presenting a possible historical parallel rather than a confirmed reversal pattern. “This current correction has been much slower and orderly than the one we saw back then,” he wrote, describing the proportional drawdown as similar to the earlier episode.