Bitcoin Crash 2026: Why Did Bitcoin Crash, Will It Crash Again?

Last Updated: November 10, 2026

Quick Answer: Bitcoin traded at about $73,280 at 15:39 UTC on November 10, 2026, 42% below its all-time high of $126,198 from October 6, 2025, according to CoinMarketCap.

It fell below $73,500 that day for the first time since August 21, after October consumer prices rose more than forecast and traders priced in a Fed rate hike for December 9. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have lost $2.13 billion since the October 29 Binance hack, Farside Investors data show.

Bitcoin itself is not ending: its code caps the supply at 21 million coins, 95.8% of them are already mined, and the last fraction is expected around 2140, after which miners will be paid only through transaction fees.

Key Takeaways:

• Price: about $73,280 at 15:39 UTC on November 10, 2026, down 2.5% in 24 hours, 5.1% in seven days and 16.3% since January 1, with a market value of about $1.47 trillion (CoinMarketCap)
• Drawdown: 41.9% below the $126,198 record of October 6, 2025; the low of the cycle so far is $57,748 on July 1, 2026, a 54.2% fall from the peak
• Latest drop: a one-day rebound to $81,080 on November 4 failed as tech stocks slumped, and hotter-than-expected October inflation data on November 10 pushed Bitcoin below $73,500 for the first time since August 21; US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $2.13 billion in the seven trading days after the Binance hack (Farside Investors)
• Biggest crashes of 2025 and 2026: the October 10, 2025 liquidation crash ($19.13 billion of positions closed in 24 hours, per CoinGlass), January to February 2026 (down 38.6% to $60,074) and May to July 2026 (down 30.2% to $57,748)
• Sentiment: the Crypto Fear and Greed Index read 32 (Fear) on November 10, after 25 (Extreme Fear) on November 7 (alternative.me)
• Bitcoin ending: 20.11 million of the 21 million BTC are mined, the next halving is expected around April 2028 and the last coins around 2140; transaction fees made up just 0.71% of miner revenue over the past week (mempool.space)

Bitcoin hit $126,198 on October 6, 2025. Four days later, a wave of forced selling erased $19 billion of leveraged crypto bets. By February 6, 2026, Bitcoin had touched $60,074, and on July 1 it fell to $57,748, a 54% decline in under nine months.

A rebound to $87,364 in September faded, the October 29 Binance hack pushed the price back below $80,000, and on November 10 hotter US inflation data pushed it below $73,500. Long-term holders who had waited through years of bear markets were staring at losses again, and the question dominating crypto forums, trading desks and financial headlines was the same: why did Bitcoin crash, and will it crash again?

This article covers the full story: Blockchainreporter’s timeline of the major Bitcoin drawdowns of 2025 and 2026, built from CoinMarketCap daily data, the causes behind each one, how this cycle compares with past crashes, what named analysts and prediction markets expect, the price levels to watch, and what “Bitcoin ending” really means once the last coin is mined around 2140.

What Happened: The 2025 to 2026 Bitcoin Crash Timeline

Bitcoin’s slide from its October 2025 record to the 2026 lows is its deepest correction since 2022, although it is shallower so far than the 77% to 84% falls of the last two cycles.

Bitcoin’s 20% drawdown in late 2025 first sparked bear market fears, with on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr noting that the same drawdown can be a healthy correction or the start of a deep bear market, and that context, not the percentage alone, determines which one it is.

At the current supply, the fall from $126,198 to about $73,280 has erased roughly $1 trillion of Bitcoin’s market value. Live prices are on CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.

The table lists the biggest Bitcoin drops of 2025 and 2026, measured from CoinMarketCap daily highs and lows in UTC.

January and February 2026: Bitcoin peaked at $97,861 on January 14, then slid as ETFs posted their largest daily outflow since November 20, 2025, $817.8 million on January 29. On January 30, President Trump picked Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve; gold fell 11.4% that day and silver 31.4%, Fortune reported, and Bitcoin lost 6.5% the next day.

The selling peaked on February 5, when Bloomberg described forced deleveraging as Bitcoin dropped below $61,000, wiping out its gains since Trump’s 2024 election win. On-chain data from Glassnode pointed to a deep bear market, as we reported on February 7.

May to July 2026: After recovering to $82,792 on May 6, Bitcoin fell 20.1% in the first five days of June and reached $59,030 on June 24, its lowest level since October 2024 at the time, CryptoSlate reported, as traders bet that the Fed would raise rates.

The low of the cycle so far came on July 1 at $57,748. June’s net ETF outflow of $4.51 billion is the largest monthly outflow since the funds launched in January 2024, by our sum of Farside’s daily data.

The rebound and the latest drop: Bitcoin then rallied 51.3% to $87,364 on September 21 while ETF inflows returned, with a net $3.54 billion in August and $2.65 billion in September.

The Fed raised its target range by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00% in September, its first increase after a series of cuts in 2024 and 2025, and on October 28 it held rates there while two policymakers, Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack, voted for another increase.

The next day, hackers moved about $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets, according to blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs, as reported by CBS News. Bitcoin fell 4.3% on October 29 and touched $76,190 on October 30, its lowest level since September 17, as US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $643.2 million that day.

Binance began reopening withdrawals in phases on November 1 and opened a second phase from 04:00 UTC on November 3 across nine networks; our report on how Binance withdrawals reopened after the hack has the full timeline.

November: Bitcoin recovered to $81,080 on November 4, the day after the US midterm elections, and closed above $80,000 for the only time since the hack, as US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their first inflow since October 29. The rebound lasted one session.

On November 5, the Bank of England raised its key rate to 4% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52%, its worst session in 19 months, Decrypt reported. Bitcoin dropped below $76,000, and CoinGlass counted $1.06 billion of crypto liquidations over 24 hours. A stronger-than-expected jobs report on November 6, with 165,000 jobs added in October, raised the odds of a December Fed hike.

On November 10, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, and 0.3% excluding food and energy, against forecasts of 0.3% and 0.2%. Bitcoin fell below $73,500 for the first time since August 21. Earlier that day, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said in a London speech that a half-point rate increase should be considered in December if October core inflation came in around 0.3% or higher, as it did.

For the bigger picture behind this year’s slide, read our explainer on why crypto is crashing in 2026 and whether it will recover.

Why Did Bitcoin Crash? The Four Key Causes

No single event explains the 2025 to 2026 Bitcoin crash. Four forces did most of the damage, and in the latest drop three of them returned at once.

1. Leverage and the October 10 liquidation cascade

The bear market’s roots go back to October 10, 2025. After President Trump threatened new tariffs on China, crypto markets saw $19.13 billion of positions liquidated in 24 hours across 1,618,240 traders, the largest liquidation event in crypto history, according to CoinGlass data reported by Decrypt.

Bitcoin fell from above $121,000 to below $106,000 within hours, and it has not returned to its October 6 record since. A forced sell-off of that size wipes out the leveraged buyers who had been supporting the price.

2. ETF outflows

US spot Bitcoin ETFs, which had absorbed tens of billions of dollars of demand in 2024 and 2025, turned into sellers. They lost a net $3.47 billion in November 2025, $1.09 billion in December and $1.60 billion in January 2026, $6.16 billion in three months, then a record $4.51 billion in June 2026 and another $515.9 million in October, according to Farside Investors data summed by month.

Cumulative net inflows since the January 2024 launch peaked at about $61.2 billion at the end of October 2025 and stand at $55.57 billion after the latest outflows, which leaves 2026 with net outflows of about $1 billion. As we reported in March, cumulative ETF inflows stalled in early 2026. When investors redeem ETF shares, the funds give up actual bitcoin, which is why ETF flows move the price.

3. The Fed’s hawkish turn

Bitcoin trades like a risk asset, and 2026 brought a rate hike instead of the cuts many traders had expected. On January 30, President Trump named Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed; gold fell 11.4% and the dollar rallied that day, Fortune reported.

In June, traders priced in hikes after resilient inflation data, CryptoSlate reported, and the US dollar index rose to a 13-month high. The Fed raised its target range to 3.75% to 4.00% in September and held it on October 28, when two officials voted for another increase.

Before that meeting, traders had put the odds of a further hike at the December 8 to 9 meeting above 70%, Decrypt reported, and hotter October inflation data on November 10 put the Fed on track for that hike, American Banker reported. Higher rates raise the cost of holding assets that pay no yield, such as Bitcoin; our analysis of the October Fed decision explains what is at stake in December.

4. The Binance hack

The newest shock is a security failure at the world’s largest crypto exchange. On October 29, 2026, hackers moved about $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes, according to TRM Labs, which attributed the attack with high confidence to TraderTraitor, the North Korean unit the FBI also named on October 31, CBS News reported.

Binance said deposits were unaffected, froze roughly $3 billion of affected assets with partners and pledged to cover all customer losses. By November 4, Binance said it had replenished about 98% of the affected assets, a figure that has not been independently verified, and it took a new proof-of-reserves snapshot covering 44 assets that day.

Bitcoin Crash History: Has This Happened Before?

The 2025 to 2026 Bitcoin crash is severe, but it is not unprecedented. Blockchainreporter’s drawdown calculations from CoinMarketCap daily highs and lows show that the last two cycles ended in much deeper falls, and in both cases Bitcoin later went on to set a new record.

Exchange failures have hit Bitcoin before. The collapse of Mt. Gox in 2014, told in our Mt. Gox history, is the best-known case, and the 2022 slide deepened after the collapses of Terra in May and FTX in November.

Two differences stand out in this cycle. The decline has been shallower, 54.2% at the July 1 low against 77% to 84% in the last two cycles, and even after the crash Bitcoin trades 6.5% above its November 2021 record.

The decline has also come in separate waves rather than one long slide: October 2025, November 2025, January to February 2026, May to July 2026 and the latest drop after the Binance hack. Whether that pattern means a milder bear market or an unfinished one is the question the next sections address with attributed views and data.

Will Bitcoin Crash Again? Bear and Bull Cases

No one can say whether Bitcoin will crash again, and this page makes no prediction of its own. What follows are the published views of named analysts and markets, with their dates. As early as January, Bitcoin’s 2026 outlook had shifted from moonshot predictions toward a range-bound structure, as we reported on January 1.

The bear case: more downside

The Fed could hike again. Two Fed officials voted for a rate increase on October 28, the October inflation data put a December hike on track, American Banker reported, and Governor Christopher Waller has said a half-point move should be considered. Bets on higher rates were the main catalyst when Bitcoin fell below $60,000 in June, according to CryptoSlate.

Some analysts still see a lower low. Chinese bitcoin miner Jiang Zhuoer argued in June that Bitcoin could bottom at $42,000 to $44,000 in late 2026, using the falling ratio of Strategy’s market value to its bitcoin holdings as a leading signal. In February, Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick called “$50,000 or just below” a buying level, The Block reported.

Prediction markets are cautious. On Kalshi, a prediction market regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, traders priced about a 7% chance on November 10 that Bitcoin trades above $100,000 before the end of 2026, down from 14% on November 2, and about a 7% chance that it falls below $50,000 before January 1.

The bull case: the low is in

Banks and brokers see a rebound. Citi’s analysts set a 12-month target of $113,000 in a September 30 note that assumes about $5 billion of ETF inflows. Standard Chartered cut its end-2026 target to $100,000 from $150,000 on February 12, and Kendrick wrote in August that the target might be too low, Cointelegraph reported. Bernstein said on August 26 that Bitcoin could reclaim $125,000 by late 2026.

The cycle low may already be behind it. Standard Chartered said in early June that the low was almost in. Bitcoin dipped further, to $57,748 on July 1, before rallying 51% into September. All of these forecasts predate the Binance hack.

The gap between the two camps is wide: the published targets imply gains of 36% to 71% from about $73,280, while Kalshi traders see only a small chance of a return to six figures this year.

On-Chain Signals: What the Data Says

Beyond analyst forecasts, blockchain and market data give a more granular picture of where Bitcoin stands in November 2026.

Exchange outflows after the hack. Withdrawals surged when Binance reopened them on November 1: more than $6 billion left the exchange in the first 24 hours, about 3.6% of its pre-hack assets, according to DefiLlama data cited by CoinDesk, a figure that may include transfers between Binance’s own wallets.

Net outflows were $2.57 billion on November 2, down from $6.1 billion a day earlier, according to DefiLlama data cited by Cointelegraph. By November 8, Binance’s bitcoin reserves had fallen to about 673,700 BTC from about 730,000 BTC before the attack, a 7.7% drop, according to CryptoQuant data. Outflows after a hack reflect caution toward one venue, so they say less about long-term accumulation than exchange outflows usually do.

Funding and leverage. Derivatives traders were deeply bearish earlier in the year: in March, the Bitcoin funding rate 30-day percentile dropped to 6%, its lowest level since early 2023, as we reported on March 10. Leverage has not gone away. When Bitcoin broke below $60,000 in June, about $1 billion of positions were liquidated within 24 hours, most of them bets on higher prices, according to CoinGlass data cited by CryptoSlate.

Early November brought two more flushes of more than $1 billion: CoinGlass counted $1.06 billion of liquidations in the 24 hours to the evening of November 5, and more than $1 billion again late on November 8, most of it long positions, CoinDesk reported.

Miner revenue. Miners earn 3.125 BTC for each block plus the fees in it. Over the last 1,008 blocks, about one week up to block 975,315, fees came to 22.6 BTC out of 3,173 BTC paid to miners, or 0.71%, according to mempool.space data.

New issuance of about 450 BTC a day is worth roughly $33.0 million at today’s price, and mining difficulty has not set a record in 374 days, as we reported on November 7.

Sentiment. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index read 32 (Fear) on November 10, after returning briefly to 50 (Neutral) on November 5 and dropping to 25 (Extreme Fear) on November 7, according to alternative.me; our Fear and Greed Index guide explains what the readings mean.

Corporate treasuries. Companies that hold Bitcoin as a treasury asset could add to selling pressure if they need to sell coins to meet their obligations, and some already have: MARA Holdings sold 13,597 BTC after the third quarter to repay $750 million of bitcoin-backed loans.

The largest holder, Strategy, held 850,364 BTC after the 1,036 BTC it reported buying on November 9, according to its official purchase list, about 4.2% of all bitcoin in circulation, at an average cost of $75,456, above today’s price.

What are the main signs of a potential Bitcoin crash?

No single indicator predicts a crash, but the same warning signs appeared before or during the 2025 and 2026 drops:

1. Crowded leverage. Record liquidations of $19.13 billion on October 10, 2025 and about $1 billion within 24 hours in June 2026 turned falls into cascades.
2. Sustained ETF outflows. Every major 2026 slide came with heavy redemptions, including a record $4.51 billion in June and $2.13 billion in the seven trading days after the Binance hack.
3. Rising odds of Fed rate hikes. Bets on hikes were the main catalyst of the June 2026 sell-off, two Fed officials voted for a hike on October 28, the day before the latest drop, and hotter October inflation data on November 10 pushed Bitcoin to its lowest level since August 21.
4. A stronger dollar. The US dollar index reached a 13-month high in June 2026 as Bitcoin fell below $60,000.
5. Exchange security incidents. The October 29 Binance hack set off the latest drop, as exchange failures did in 2014 and 2022.
6. Broken support levels. Bitcoin lost $80,000 on October 29, a level it had held at every daily close since September 18, regained it for one day on November 4 and fell below its September 15 low of $74,945 on November 6.

Is Bitcoin Going to Crash Again? Key Levels to Watch

For anyone asking whether Bitcoin is going to crash further, these are the price levels the market has reacted to in recent months. They are observed levels from CoinMarketCap data, not forecasts.

$87,364: the September 21 high and the top of the 90-day range. Bitcoin trades 16.1% below it.

$81,080: the November 4 high, the best level since the Binance hack.

$80,000: the round number lost on October 29. Bitcoin closed above it every day from September 18 to October 28 and once more on November 4, but not since.

$76,190: the October 30 low, broken on November 5.

$74,945: the September 15 low, broken on November 6. In September, Bitcoin rallied to $87,364 within a week after holding it.

$73,500: broken on November 10 for the first time since August 21, after the October inflation data.

$73,011: the August 21 low and the next observed level below.

$62,488: the 90-day low, set in August.

$57,748: the July 1 low, the bottom of the cycle so far and the 52-week low. A break below it would mean a new cycle low.

Bitcoin vs Gold: The Store of Value Question

The 2026 crash has revived a basic debate about Bitcoin’s identity. Gold climbed to a record near $5,600 an ounce on January 29, 2026, the same day Bitcoin fell below $84,000, and then dropped 11.4% on January 30 after the Warsh pick, Fortune reported.

Gold has since fallen further: PAX Gold (PAXG), a token backed by one troy ounce of gold, traded at about $4,036 on CoinMarketCap on November 10, 28.2% below its January 29 record. Over the past 12 months, PAXG is down 1.9% while Bitcoin is down 30.9%, so Bitcoin has lost far more even though gold also gave back ground in 2026. Our gold price prediction analysis covers what major banks forecast for gold.

The divergence matters because it undermines one of Bitcoin’s strongest long-term narratives. Bitcoin has traded more like a technology stock than like digital gold: on November 5, it fell 5.6% as the Nasdaq Composite lost 5.52%, while PAX Gold edged up 0.4%. Supporters of the gold comparison have not given up on it. JPMorgan, which values Bitcoin against gold, put its long-term estimate at about $266,000 in February 2026, The Block reported.

For broader context on how Ethereum and the DeFi ecosystem are performing during this bear market period, the same macro pressures that have weighed on Bitcoin have also hit the wider crypto market, although Ethereum’s Proof of Stake design and its Layer 2 ecosystem give it different fundamentals from Bitcoin’s store-of-value narrative.

When Will Bitcoin Recover?

History provides the most useful framework for recovery timelines, with the caveat that every cycle has been different and no model can reliably predict when a sell-off will end. In 2018 and 2022, Bitcoin’s bear market low came about 12 months after the peak.

In this cycle, the lowest price so far, $57,748 on July 1, 2026, came about nine months after the October 2025 peak. Bitcoin has since traded as much as 51% above that low and now sits 27% above it.

The data on this page point to three things to watch:

1. ETF flows. Net inflows of $6.19 billion in August and September came with the 51% rebound, and outflows came with most of the big slides, including net outflows of $1.48 billion in November through November 9. Citi’s $113,000 target assumes about $5 billion of new ETF inflows.
2. The Fed. Expectations of rate hikes accompanied the June crash, two officials voted for another hike in October, and Governor Christopher Waller has floated a half-point increase. The next decision is due on December 9.
3. Regulation. The CLARITY Act, the bill meant to set US crypto market rules, failed a Senate procedural vote 49 to 50 on September 15, 2026, as our CLARITY Act explainer details.

The near-term calendar: the minutes of the Fed’s October meeting on November 18, the November US jobs report on December 4, the Fed’s decision on December 9 and November consumer price data on December 10. Bitcoin News Today and why Bitcoin is down today track the daily moves.

What the record shows is that Bitcoin has recovered from every previous crash to set new highs, but the record offers no guarantee for this cycle, and the timing of any recovery depends on flows, rates and rules that Bitcoin does not control. Our Bitcoin price prediction page tracks dated forecasts, and the live Bitcoin price page has the latest data.

Bitcoin Ending Explained: What Happens When the Last Bitcoin Is Mined?

“Bitcoin ending” usually refers to the end of new supply, not the end of the network. Bitcoin’s code creates new coins only as a reward for mining blocks and cuts that reward in half every 210,000 blocks, about every four years, so issuance shrinks toward zero and stops around 2140, according to the Bitcoin Wiki. The total that will ever exist is just under 21 million coins: 20,999,999.9769 BTC.

What happens as the last bitcoin approaches:

1. Issuance keeps falling. About 450 new BTC are mined each day at 3.125 BTC per block, and after the 2028 halving it will be about 225 BTC a day. As of November 10, 2026, 20,110,315 BTC, or 95.76% of the cap, had been mined, leaving 889,685 BTC, according to CoinMarketCap.
2. Fees take over miner pay. Today fees are a small share of what miners earn, 0.71% over the past week. The Bitcoin white paper planned for this, stating that once the coins are issued, the incentive “can transition entirely to transaction fees”.
3. The last fraction is mined around 2140. The reward is counted in satoshis, the smallest unit of a bitcoin, and halving it again and again reaches zero at block 6,930,000. At about ten minutes per block, that is roughly 113 years from now.
4. The network keeps running. Blocks keep being produced and transactions keep settling; the only change is that miners are paid entirely by the fees users attach to transactions, as the Bitcoin Wiki describes. Our guide on how to mine Bitcoin explains how mining works today.

How many bitcoins are lost forever?

No one knows the exact number. A coin whose private keys are lost looks the same on the blockchain as a coin held in long-term storage, so every estimate of lost bitcoin is an inference.

What is certain is that lost coins cannot be recovered: Bitcoin has no administrator who can reset a key or reissue coins, and CoinMarketCap’s circulating supply of 20,110,315 BTC is the same as its total supply, with no deduction for lost coins.

Lost coins therefore make the usable supply smaller than the headline figures suggest. Stolen coins are a different case: they can sometimes be traced and frozen when they reach exchanges or stablecoin issuers, as Binance said it did with roughly $3 billion of assets after the October hack, and the Mt. Gox trustee has repaid more than 19,500 creditors in bitcoin and bitcoin cash since the exchange’s 2014 collapse.

Could Bitcoin end or go to zero?

No company or government can switch Bitcoin off, because thousands of independent computers run its software, but Bitcoin’s price has no floor. Nothing backs it except demand, so in principle it could fall to zero if buyers disappeared. The record so far points the other way: Bitcoin survived falls of 84% in 2018 and 77% in 2022, and even after the latest crash it trades 6.5% above its 2021 record.

The open questions are long term. The first is the security budget: fees currently total only about 23 BTC a week, so unless fees or the price rise, miners’ income will shrink with every halving, and with it the reward for securing the network.

The second is technology, including the risk that future quantum computers could break the signatures that protect coins, a debate covered in our report on post-quantum security plans. Long-range forecasts do not assume an end: even the bear case in VanEck’s long-term capital market assumptions, published on January 8, 2026, puts Bitcoin at $130,000 in 2050.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why has the price of Bitcoin dropped recently?
Bitcoin’s latest drop came in two stages. The Fed held rates on October 28 with two officials voting for a hike, and hackers took about $6.3 billion from Binance on October 29. A brief rebound to $81,080 on November 4 failed as tech stocks slumped, and on November 10 hotter-than-expected October inflation pushed Bitcoin below $73,500 for the first time since August 21. US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $2.13 billion after the hack.

Why did Bitcoin crash in 2026?
Bitcoin’s 2026 crash came in waves. ETF outflows and forced deleveraging drove it from $97,861 in January to $60,074 on February 6. Bets on Fed rate hikes and a record $4.51 billion of ETF outflows in June pushed it to $57,748 on July 1. Since late October, a hawkish Fed hold, the Binance hack and hotter inflation data have sent it back below $74,000.

Did Bitcoin crash from its all-time high?
Yes. Bitcoin set its all-time high of $126,198 on October 6, 2025, according to CoinMarketCap, and fell as low as $57,748 on July 1, 2026, a 54.2% drop in under nine months. At about $73,280 on November 10, 2026, Bitcoin trades 42% below the record and would need to rise about 72% to reach it again.

Will Bitcoin crash again?
No one knows, and published views differ widely. Citi set a 12-month target of $113,000 on September 30 and Bernstein expects $125,000 by late 2026, while Kalshi traders priced only about a 7% chance on November 10 of Bitcoin topping $100,000 this year. Fed Governor Christopher Waller has floated a half-point rate hike, and miner Jiang Zhuoer has argued for a bottom of $42,000 to $44,000.

Is Bitcoin going to crash below $50,000?
No forecast can settle that. The lowest Bitcoin price in this cycle so far is $57,748, reached on July 1, 2026, so the $50,000 level has not been tested. On Kalshi, traders priced about a 7% chance on November 10 of a fall below $50,000 before January 1. Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick called $50,000 or just below a buying level in February, and miner Jiang Zhuoer has argued for a $42,000 to $44,000 bottom.

When will the Bitcoin crash stop and recovery begin?
There is no reliable timetable. In 2018 and 2022, Bitcoin’s bear market low came about 12 months after the peak. In this cycle, the lowest price so far came on July 1, 2026, about nine months after the October 2025 peak, and Bitcoin later rallied 51% to $87,364 in September before the Binance hack and hotter inflation data pushed it back to about $73,000.

Why did Bitcoin crash when gold was rising?
In January 2026, gold climbed to a record near $5,600 an ounce while Bitcoin was already falling, because Bitcoin traded like a risk asset tied to tech stocks and interest rates. Gold has since dropped as well: PAX Gold, a gold-backed token, traded about 28% below its January record on November 10, yet Bitcoin’s 31% loss over the past year is far larger than gold’s 2%.

Has Bitcoin crashed this badly before?
Yes, and worse. By CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin fell 84.1% from December 2017 to December 2018 and 77.3% from November 2021 to November 2022, and it went on to set new records after both. The current cycle’s peak-to-trough fall is 54.2% so far, from $126,198 in October 2025 to $57,748 in July 2026, the mildest of the three.

What caused the $19 billion Bitcoin liquidation in October 2025?
On October 10, 2025, President Trump threatened new tariffs on China, and the sell-off forced exchanges to close leveraged positions in a cascade. CoinGlass counted $19.13 billion of liquidations across 1,618,240 traders in 24 hours, the largest liquidation event in crypto history. Bitcoin fell 14.6% from its high that day to a low of $104,582, according to CoinMarketCap.

What does Bitcoin ending mean, and what happens when all bitcoin is mined?
Bitcoin ending usually means the end of new supply, not of the network. The block reward halves every 210,000 blocks, so new coins stop around 2140, at just under 21 million in total. After that, miners will earn only transaction fees while the network keeps producing blocks. About 95.8% of all bitcoin is already mined, and the next halving is expected around April 2028.

Can Bitcoin go to zero?
In theory, yes, because nothing backs Bitcoin except demand, but it survived drops of 84% and 77% in earlier cycles and still trades above its 2021 record. No company or government can switch the network off. Even the bear case in VanEck’s long-term assumptions, published in January 2026, puts Bitcoin at $130,000 in 2050, although such long-range forecasts are highly uncertain.

If crypto crashes, where does the money go?
Mostly, it does not go anywhere. A crypto price is set by the latest trades, so when buyers pay less, the market value of every coin falls and paper gains disappear without cash moving. Money changes hands only in actual trades: sellers who exit receive cash from buyers, and traders whose leveraged positions are liquidated lose their collateral.

Data sources: CoinMarketCap (price at 15:39 UTC on November 10, 2026, daily highs and lows, supply, PAXG), Farside Investors (ETF flows), the Federal Reserve, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, alternative.me, mempool.space, Kalshi, Strategy’s purchase list, CryptoQuant, the Bitcoin Wiki and white paper, plus reporting by CBS News, CoinDesk, Decrypt, Fortune, Bloomberg, CryptoSlate, Cointelegraph, American Banker and The Block. This page is for information only and is not investment advice.