Bitcoin hits 12-week low as dollar rallies on interest-rate outlook, liquidations top $1.6 billion

Bitcoin BTC $69,051.97 and ether ETH $1,959.83 slumped to their lowest levels in 12 weeks as traders priced in a Fed rate increase next month, strengthening the dollar, raising bond yields and making riskier assets less attractive.

Bitcoin is 3.5% lower since midnight UTC, sliding through the psychologically important $70,000 level and slumping to as low as $67,770, a level not seen since Aug. 19. Ether hit $1,900, the least since Aug. 18, while the CoinDesk 20 Index dropped 2%.

Dollar surge

The slump coincided with a rally in the U.S. currency as the CME Fedwatch tool showed traders seeing an 88% chance of a 25-basis-point increase in interest rates and a 12% chance of a 50bps raise after this week's hotter-than-estimated inflation data. The Dollar Index rose above 103, its highest since April 2025.

Crypto was also hit by Thursday's resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, sending shares of the AI chip maker, the world's second-largest company by market cap, tumbling 4%. Bitcoin tends to track tech stocks tightly.

Liquidations surge

Leveraged traders took the brunt, with $1.64 billion of liquidations over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data. Longs accounted for 88.7% of the damage, including $916 million in bitcoin and $289 million in ether.

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw net withdrawals of $47.7 million on Thursday, according to Farside Investors, marking a sixth straight day of outflows totaling around $1.44 billion.

Market dynamics

Over 24 hours, crypto futures trading volume jumped 58.3% to $269.1 billion while open interest fell 4.6% to $120.2 billion, which means traders closed positions and money left the market. Liquidations surged 513.7% to $1.64 billion, with longs making up 88.6% of the wipeout.

Bitcoin futures accounted for $916 million in liquidations, more than half the market total, and 95.2% of that was longs. Its open interest fell 5.4% against a 5.9% price drop, so net money in bitcoin futures held roughly steady.

Most of the largest coins have slightly negative funding, including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and Tron's TRX, meaning shorts are paying longs and bearish exposure is in demand. The largest single liquidation was a $31.1 million long on Hyperliquid at $72,250.

Altcoin impact

Money did leave some smaller names. Solana (SOL) open interest fell 8.6% against a 3.6% price drop, zcash (ZEC) fell 8.0% against 3.8%, and dogecoin DOGE $0.06538 fell 7.3% against 3.4%.

Aave's lending market is in the spotlight after Nasdaq-listed BTCS disclosed it sold ether at a loss to protect a roughly $64 million Aave loan from liquidation, which, by CoinDesk's calculations, would come under threat near $1,717 per ether.

The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index (DFX) is down 3.5% since midnight UTC, the steepest fall among the sector indexes, and aero (AERO) has lost 8.0%, the weakest token in the CoinDesk 100.

Market sentiment

CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season index jumped to 48 from 39 on Thursday as a select few altcoins showed strength against bitcoin, though it is still short of the 75 that signals an altcoin season. The Fear and Greed Index is at 19, a level denoting extreme fear.

October producer prices are due later today, with economists expecting a 0.4% monthly rise. The Fed meets Dec. 8-9 to decide on interest rates.