Why is Bitcoin crashing? BTC below $65,000, 49% off its high — what DCA buyers have now
Bitcoin had its roughest week in months. After slipping under $70,000 on Friday, November 13, it touched about $62,000 over the weekend — a three-month low — and was trading near $64,500 on Sunday (live price now: $64,540.40). That is roughly 49% below the all-time high of $126,080 set on October 6, 2025. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index sits at 10 out of 100 — "extreme fear" — down from 63 a month ago.
Below: what pushed the price down, how this drop compares with earlier Bitcoin crashes, and — the part only our data can show — what people who simply kept buying every day actually have right now.
Why Bitcoin fell this week
Several pressures hit at the same time:
- Rate-hike fears. October inflation came in hotter than expected (CPI +0.4% for the month). Futures markets now price a high chance that the Federal Reserve raises rates again at its December 9 meeting, after a first hike in September. Higher rates make risky assets like crypto less attractive, and the US dollar index climbed to its strongest level since April 2025.
- ETF money leaving. US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw about $1.91 billion of net outflows over seven straight trading days (November 5–13), according to Farside data cited by crypto.news. When ETF holders sell, funds have to sell real bitcoin.
- Leverage being flushed out. Traders who borrowed to bet on higher prices were forced out. CoinGlass data showed close to $2 billion of crypto positions liquidated in 24 hours, with around 80% of the Bitcoin liquidations being long (bullish) bets. Each forced sale pushes the price lower and can trigger the next one.
- Extra worries. Geopolitical tension in the Gulf lifted oil prices, and index provider MSCI plans to drop Strategy — the company that holds more than 850,000 BTC — from its global indexes on November 30.
Ethereum fell even harder: it dropped below $2,000 for the first time since August and now trades around $1,811.93. For live headlines, see our news page.
How deep is this crash compared with the past?
Our all-time-high tracker shows how far every asset is from its peak. For Bitcoin, a 49% drop sounds brutal, but on monthly closing prices it is not unusual:
- 2014–2015: from the September 2014 peak to January 2015 — −44%
- 2017–2019: from December 2017 to January 2019 — −76%
- 2021–2022: from October 2021 to December 2022 — −73%
- 2025–2026: from July 2025 to June 2026 — −49% (and close to that level again now)
Two honest takeaways. First, Bitcoin has fallen 40–75% several times and later recovered — but past recoveries are not a promise; nothing guarantees the pattern repeats. Second, today's drop is still smaller than the two biggest bear markets, which means it could go deeper. Analysts quoted this week name levels from $60,000 down to $57,000 as possible floors; nobody knows. Our Bitcoin halving page shows how earlier cycles played out around each halving.
What steady buyers have right now
Here is the interesting part. Five years ago — November 2021 — Bitcoin was sitting right at its previous peak. It was one of the worst possible moments to buy.
- $1,000 put in at once five years ago is worth $1,131.41 today (+13.1%).
- $10 every day over the same five years means $18,410 invested, now worth $27,439 (+49.0%).
Same coin, same terrible starting point — but the daily buyer kept picking up cheap coins during the 2022 crash, which cushioned the result. Over shorter periods the picture is red: someone who started $10 a day one year ago is at −12.4%, because almost all of their buying happened near the top. That is the real cost of DCA: in a falling market it hurts too, just less sharply than a badly timed lump sum.
How Bitcoin compares with stocks and gold over the same five years of $10-a-day buying:
| Asset | Invested | DCA · 5 years | Result | $1,000 5 years ago |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | $18,410 | $27,439 | +49.0% | $1,131.41 |
| Ethereum | $18,410 | $15,128 | −17.8% | $391.3 |
| S&P 500 | $18,410 | $27,951 | +51.8% | $1,770.46 |
| Gold | $18,410 | $29,455 | +60.0% | $2,191.19 |
You can test any start date and amount in the comparison tool.
What "extreme fear" means for a regular investor
A Fear & Greed reading of 10 tells you how people feel, not where the price goes next. Historically, very low readings have shown up near some bottoms — and also in the middle of drops that kept going. A few calm rules that hold either way:
- Only invest money you will not need for years. If a further 30% drop would force you to sell, the amount is too big.
- Keep the plan boring. A fixed sum on a fixed day removes the "is this the bottom?" question. Our habits calculator shows what a small daily amount adds up to.
- Avoid leverage. This week's crash was made worse by borrowed money. Spot buying can lose value; leveraged trades can go to zero in hours.
- Diversify. In the table above, the S&P 500 and gold behaved very differently from crypto over five years.
If you do buy, use a large, regulated platform — our exchange comparison lists fees and features.
Sources
- crypto.news — Bitcoin price falls to three-month low: Is $60K the next stop?
- CoinDesk — Bitcoin dips below $70,000 as selloff gathers pace
- 24/7 Wall St. — Why is Bitcoin crashing this week?
- Bitcoin World — Bitcoin ETFs lose $2.1 billion in November
- Prices, all-time highs and DCA results: WhatIfStack data (Yahoo Finance, CoinGecko, Binance); Fear & Greed: alternative.me.
Not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
