Bitcoin whipped on Tuesday, falling to a 14-month low before rebounding above $76,000 as turmoil in the tech sector sent markets tumbling.
The biggest cryptocurrency fell to $72,900 during the early US session – its weakest level since November 2024, when Donald Trump was elected. Then, BTC has since bounced back 5% from the lows and rallied back to $76,800 before the gains eased again. Ethereum’s Ether jumped 10% from session lows to above $2,300 before giving back some of the gains, according to CoinDesk data.
The rebound came as Congress reached a deal to end the partial government shutdown, providing some near-term relief to markets.
Further easing the pressure on risk assets was an appearance by Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang on CNBC, where he dismissed speculation about friction between the chipmaker and OpenAI. “There’s no controversy at all. It’s complete nonsense,” Huang said, confirming Nvidia’s commitment to invest in OpenAI’s next fundraising round. His comments came amid growing concern over the stability of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, a key driver of sentiment in the AI-driven technology rally.
Still, the sharp fall in crypto left a trail of damage. Total liquidations across digital asset derivatives rose to $740 million over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass. Long positions, those betting on higher prices, bore the brunt of the wipeout with $287 million in BTC longs and $267 million in ETH longs being flushed.
Technical break
Despite the rally, bitcoin, barring the April 2025 “tariff tantrum” declines, marked an important technical breakdown, raising the risk of a deeper correction.
Still, Benjamin Cowen, founder of research firm Into The Cryptoverse, said the overwhelming bearish sentiment could set the stage for a short-term countertrend rally. Historically, he noted, when bitcoin sweeps past lows, it often triggers relief rallies.
He also warned that failure to reject could soon mean “one hell of a midterm year,” referring to bitcoin’s previous bear markets, such as 2022 and 2018, which also coincided with US midterm elections.
“I feel like the bear narrative has been really strong for a while, and so I would expect a countertrend rally soon, so that gives the bulls some hope for a while,” Cowen said in an X post.
