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Bitcoin fell 4.42% to $68,377 on Nov. 13 (CoinGecko). The main reason: money got more expensive, as the US dollar index rose to 103.38 and the 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.15%. That pressure turned into forced selling, and CoinDesk reports more than $1.6 billion in leveraged bets were liquidated as BTC hit a 12-week low.
If you own spot bitcoin with no borrowed money on a sound platform, nothing has been taken from you. The coins are still yours, and the loss stays on paper until you sell. The next big tests come soon: $60,000 on the downside, getting back above $70,000 on the upside, then Nvidia’s earnings and the Anthropic IPO next week.
Key takeaways
- $10,000 in bitcoin a month ago is now worth about $8,418, after a 15.82% fall over 30 days (CoinGecko, Nov. 13).
- $10,000 in a 10-year Treasury at the 5.15% yield (Yahoo Finance, Nov. 13) pays about $515 a year in interest if held to maturity, with no 4% daily swings.
- The whole crypto market is worth $2.33 trillion, and bitcoin makes up 58.89% of it (CoinGecko, Nov. 13).
Why is bitcoin dropping today? The short answer
CoinGecko has bitcoin down 15.82% over the past 30 days, and CoinDesk’s live coverage on Nov. 13 put it at a 12-week low.
Prices didn’t collapse overnight. Six weeks of steady selling did it, and CoinDesk says bitcoin is on track for its sixth straight weekly loss.
Today’s fall happened across the whole market. CoinGecko puts total crypto market value at $2.33 trillion. Bitcoin’s share of that total, called dominance, is 58.89%.
I see this as a macro selloff first and a crypto story second. My reason: gold is down 6.95% in a month and the Nasdaq Composite is down 5.9% (Yahoo Finance). When gold, tech stocks and bitcoin all fall together, the shared cause is usually the price of money, not anything specific to bitcoin.
The chain from Washington to your wallet
- Interest-rate expectations rise, so the dollar and Treasury yields go up.
- Big investors go risk-off, meaning they sell volatile assets first and ask questions later.
- Bitcoin falls far enough to set off liquidations, the automatic closing of borrowed bets.
- Companies that borrowed against their crypto sell coins to protect their loans.
- Each round of forced selling pushes the price lower and sets off the next one.
How a stronger dollar and 5% Treasury yields push bitcoin lower
CoinDesk’s headline on Nov. 13 named the trigger directly: bitcoin hit a 12-week low “as dollar rallies on interest-rate outlook.” The numbers back that up.
The dollar index is up 3.42% in three months
Yahoo Finance shows the US dollar index at 103.38, up 1.36% in a month and 3.42% in three months. The euro has dropped to $1.10, down 4.38% over three months. A stronger dollar tightens global liquidity, which is the amount of spare cash looking for a home. Bitcoin is priced in dollars and owned around the world, so it tends to suffer when dollars become scarce and expensive.
Why a 5.15% 10-year Treasury yield hurts bitcoin
The 10-year yield is 5.15%, and Yahoo Finance shows that yield up 11.05% over three months, which is roughly half a percentage point. Meanwhile the New York Fed’s effective fed funds rate was 3.88% on Nov. 12. Investors are asking for an extra 1.27 points to lend for ten years instead of overnight. Part of that gap is the term premium, the extra pay bond buyers want for locking money up during uncertain times.
Bitcoin pays no interest. When a government bond pays 5.15% with almost no default risk, holding something that pays nothing and can fall 4% in a day costs more. I covered what rising yields do to mortgages and savings in our breakdown of Thursday’s Treasury yield jump, and bitcoin feels the same pressure.
One thing didn’t help: Cointelegraph reports bitcoin stayed below $70,000 and stocks slipped even after a cooler-than-expected US PPI report. Good inflation news failed to lift prices, and that tells you how strong the risk-off mood is right now.
Who is being forced to sell bitcoin right now?
Macro forces set off the decline. Forced sellers made it worse. People who sell because they want to will stop at some point. People who sell because a loan or a margin call requires it keep selling until the debt is covered.
$1.6 billion in liquidations in a single day
CoinDesk reports liquidations above $1.6 billion as bitcoin hit its low. A liquidation is what an exchange does when a leveraged trader’s losses eat through their collateral: it closes the position at market price. Each forced sale pushes the price toward the next group of stop levels. Traders call this a long squeeze, the opposite of a short squeeze.
Bitcoin treasury companies are under strain
Companies that loaded up on crypto as a balance-sheet strategy are now in trouble. CoinDesk reports the bitcoin firm Nakamoto owes Kraken $165 million, which is more than the company’s entire market value. Cointelegraph says Metaplanet swung to a $170 million loss after a bitcoin sale hit its earnings. On the ether side, CoinDesk reports BTCS sold ETH at a loss to keep a $64 million Aave loan healthy.
That last example shows the mechanism clearly. A falling coin price shrinks the collateral, the lender wants a safer loan-to-value ratio, and the borrower sells coins into a weak market. DeFi data shows the same strain: CoinGecko’s lending and borrowing protocols category lost 9.92% of its market value in 24 hours, and Ethena USDtb’s locked value fell 23.88% in a single day.
Spot bitcoin ETFs are negative for the year
CoinDesk reports that US bitcoin ETFs now have more than $1.5 billion in net outflows for the year. Those funds were supposed to bring in steady buying from retirement accounts and advisors. When they lose money on net, one of the main sources of demand from the last cycle is working against the price.
Is the Anthropic IPO pulling money out of bitcoin?
It’s possible, and the rotation argument holds up. MarketWatch ran the headline “Bitcoin could fall even further if investors cash out to buy into the Anthropic IPO,” and CoinDesk said the “Anthropic IPO frenzy adds to market jitters.” Investors who want shares in the biggest AI listing need cash, and the most speculative thing in their portfolio is often the easiest to sell. For the deal terms, see our explainer on the Anthropic IPO price and date.
The Nvidia turmoil adds to it. CNBC reports Nvidia stock is on its longest weekly losing streak since 2012, with its market value down $1.7 trillion. MarketWatch says AMD and other chip stocks are sliding as Wall Street rethinks the AI trade after Jensen Huang’s exit. CNBC also reports a Fed survey that named AI risks as the biggest threat to the financial system.
Nobody knows yet how much money is actually leaving crypto for the IPO. No public data tracks that flow. I’d count it as a contributing pressure, not the main cause, because the dollar and yields explain more of the past month.
Bitcoin vs stocks, gold and altcoins: how big is the drop?
Comparing them side by side is useful. Over 30 days, bitcoin is down more than stocks but less than most large altcoins. On Nov. 13 itself, ETH, XRP and SOL all fell less than bitcoin’s 4.42%.
| Asset | Latest price or level | 1-day change | 1-month change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $68,377 | -4.42% | -15.82% | CoinGecko |
| Ethereum (ETH) | $1,931.84 | -4.30% | -19.88% | CoinGecko |
| XRP | $1.01 | -2.97% | -22.86% | CoinGecko |
| Solana (SOL) | $79.32 | -2.67% | -23.25% | CoinGecko |
| Nasdaq Composite | 25,136.27 | -0.91% | -5.90% | Yahoo Finance |
| S&P 500 | 7,561.67 | -0.40% | -2.36% | Yahoo Finance |
| Gold | $3,880.10/oz | -0.13% | -6.95% | Yahoo Finance |
| US dollar index | 103.38 | +0.21% | +1.36% | Yahoo Finance |
| 10-year Treasury yield | 5.15% | +1.00% | +1.28% | Yahoo Finance |
Two things stand out. The dollar and yields are the only items rising, and they’re what everything else is falling against. The 30-day drops for Solana (23.25%) and XRP (22.86%) are also about half again as large as bitcoin’s, which is normal for altcoins in a risk-off phase. Zcash shows how much more volatile small coins are: it lost 29.1% in seven days, according to CoinGecko.
What bitcoin’s 15.8% slide means for your money
The headline percentage doesn’t show the difference between holding bitcoin outright and holding it with borrowed money. A spot holder lost value. A leveraged trader could lose the whole position.
Spot holders vs leveraged traders
If you bought bitcoin with your own cash, a 4.42% day is uncomfortable, but you still own the same number of coins. With 5x leverage, the same move takes about $442 out of a $2,000 margin account (a round example) in one day. A few more days like that and the exchange closes the position for you, which is how the $1.6 billion in liquidations happened.
By the numbers
- A $10,000 bitcoin position lost about $1,582 over the 30 days to Nov. 13, based on CoinGecko’s 15.82% monthly decline.
- That leaves the same $10,000 position worth about $8,418.
- A trader with $2,000 of margin at 5x leverage lost about $442 on the 4.42% one-day drop, more than a fifth of their own money gone in 24 hours.
- The same $10,000 in a 10-year Treasury bought at the 5.15% yield (Yahoo Finance, Nov. 13) would pay about $515 in interest a year.
How we calculated: bitcoin’s 30-day (-15.82%) and 24-hour (-4.42%) changes come from CoinGecko data on Nov. 13, 2026, the 5.15% 10-year Treasury yield comes from Yahoo Finance on Nov. 13, 2026, and $10,000, $2,000 and 5x leverage are round example amounts.
The last row explains why yields matter so much here. Bitcoin is competing with 5.15% on 10-year Treasuries, and short-term cash rates take their cue from the Fed’s 3.88% policy rate. Savers earn the T-bill or money-market fund rate, not the fed funds rate itself, which is what banks charge each other overnight. A year ago, the cost of waiting in cash was much lower. Now it actually pays to sit out, and some money is doing exactly that.
Has bitcoin dropped like this before?
Yes, and the closest example is 2022. That year the Fed raised rates aggressively, the dollar strengthened, and bitcoin lost most of its value. Lenders and exchanges that had taken on too much risk, including Celsius and FTX, failed along the way. The pattern was the same as now: tighter money first, forced selling by overextended companies second.
There’s one important difference. In 2022 the forced sellers were mostly crypto lenders. In 2026 they include public companies that bought bitcoin as a treasury asset, such as Nakamoto and Metaplanet. They report losses every quarter and have shareholders and creditors to answer to, so their selling is public and gets headlines, which can make the panic worse.
What the 200-week moving average tells you
CoinDesk reports bitcoin has dropped below its 200-week moving average, the average closing price over roughly four years. Long-term holders watch that line because in past cycles bitcoin spent little time below it, and only near the bottom of bear markets. CoinDesk’s live coverage said bitcoin “eyes bear market lows.”
A break below the line is a warning sign, not a guaranteed bottom. Bitcoin can stay under it for months.
Bitcoin’s supply is fixed at 21 million coins, but that limits supply only. It doesn’t protect the price when demand weakens because cash is paying 5%.
Common mistakes when bitcoin is dropping
- Adding leverage to “buy the dip.” At 5x, a single 4.42% day takes more than a fifth of your margin, as the example above shows.
- Moving out of bitcoin into small altcoins to “catch up.” Solana is down 23.25% in a month and Zcash 29.1% in a week, both worse than bitcoin.
- Ignoring where your coins are. A platform that lends out customer coins carries risks that spot holdings in your own wallet don’t.
- Watching only crypto charts. The dollar index and the 10-year yield moved first this month. If you’re not tracking them, you only see the outcome, never the cause.
- Selling on the worst day with no plan. Decide now what you’d do at $60,000 and at $70,000, so your decision doesn’t depend on a red candle.
FAQ
Why is bitcoin going down right now?
The main drivers are a stronger dollar (index at 103.38) and higher Treasury yields (10-year at 5.15%), both from Yahoo Finance. Rate expectations are pushing both up. That set off waves of liquidations and selling by leveraged bitcoin companies, per CoinDesk. Worries about the Nvidia shake-up and the Anthropic IPO added to the pressure.
Could bitcoin fall below $60,000?
Nobody knows. CoinDesk reports that a momentum gauge is “turning red” and could send prices back below $60,000, so traders are clearly watching that level. Whether it breaks depends mostly on the dollar, yields and whether the forced selling stops. Treat $60,000 as a scenario to plan for, not a prediction.
Is my bitcoin safe on an exchange during a crash?
A falling price doesn’t take coins out of your account. The risk comes from the platform: whether it lends out customer assets and whether it can handle heavy withdrawals. Spot bitcoin held without leverage on a regulated exchange or in your own hardware wallet loses only market value from the price drop, though if an exchange itself goes insolvent, as FTX did in 2022, customer coins can be frozen or lost. Leveraged positions and crypto loans can be closed automatically.
Why is bitcoin falling when gold is also down?
Both are hurt by a strong dollar and high real interest rates, because neither one pays a yield. Gold is down 6.95% in a month (Yahoo Finance) and bitcoin 15.82% over 30 days (CoinGecko). When both fall at once, the cause is usually the price of money, not a loss of faith in either asset.
Does the Federal Reserve affect bitcoin’s price?
Yes, indirectly. The Fed sets short-term rates (effective fed funds at 3.88% on Nov. 12), and those shape bond yields, the dollar and how much spare cash flows into speculative assets. CoinDesk tied bitcoin’s 12-week low on Nov. 13 directly to the dollar rallying on the interest-rate outlook.
Are bitcoin ETFs losing money in 2026?
CoinDesk reports US spot bitcoin ETFs are now more than $1.5 billion in net outflows for the year. That means more money has left these funds than entered them in 2026. The funds still hold actual bitcoin, so their value follows the price of BTC.
The bitcoin levels and dates I’m watching next
First, Nvidia’s earnings next week, its first report since Jensen Huang’s exit as CEO, which MarketWatch reported (see our Nvidia earnings preview). A rough report could add to the risk-off mood that has pulled bitcoin down. Second, the Anthropic IPO, which MarketWatch and CoinDesk both flagged as a pressure on crypto, and which will show whether cash really moves from crypto into AI stocks.
Beyond those dates I’m watching the dollar index around 103 and the 10-year yield around 5.15%. If both stop rising, the biggest source of pressure eases. For bitcoin, the levels are $60,000 below, then getting back above $70,000 and the 200-week moving average.
I’d also want to see ETF flows turn positive before calling this a bottom.
This is not financial advice. Do your own research before making any decisions with your money.
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This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Crypto assets are volatile; you can lose all of your money.