- Bitcoin fell to its lowest level in more than two weeks as Nvidia’s leadership crisis pushed investors out of riskier assets.
- Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s chief executive, and CFO Colette Kress is running the company on an interim basis.
- Most of the money lost in forced crypto liquidations came from leveraged bets on rising prices.
- Hot October inflation data has left futures traders certain the Fed will raise rates in December.
Bitcoin slipped to about $71,270 on Thursday, down 3.6% in 24 hours, after Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s president and chief executive with immediate effect. His exit ends 33 years at the head of the chipmaker he co-founded. Nvidia shares fell as much as 14% after the US open, and the selloff spread to crypto, where total market value dropped 2.7% to $2.38 trillion. Exchanges forcibly closed about $748 million in leveraged positions, and $637 million of that came from traders betting on higher prices.
Huang’s Exit Briefly Erased $600 Billion
Nvidia confirmed the departure in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It named CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO and made former Synopsys chief executive Harvey C. Jones its first-ever board chair, with the job of finding a permanent successor. On Sunday, Huang, 63, admitted to an affair with a woman US officials suspect was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, a claim Beijing called baseless. On Wednesday, US press reports described a second relationship, with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care.
The selloff briefly wiped almost $600 billion off Nvidia’s market value. Buyers then cut the loss to about 5% by mid-morning in New York, which is still one of the largest one-day drops in market value any company has suffered. Nvidia had already lost more than a fifth of its value over the past month as investors questioned how fast AI spending can keep growing.
How Nvidia’s Fall Reached Crypto Margin Accounts
Many of the funds and retail traders who own Nvidia also hold Bitcoin as a high-risk growth bet. When Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 1.4% before the US session, these investors cut risk wherever they could, and crypto, which trades around the clock, is often the first place to raise cash.
Leverage made the selling worse, because most crypto speculation runs through perpetual futures, which are contracts with no expiry date that let traders borrow to make a position bigger. When the money backing a losing trade runs out, the exchange sells the position automatically. That pushes the price lower and triggers the next round of closures. In 24 hours, Bitcoin traders lost $305.63 million this way, 87.5% of it on long positions.
Nvidia’s drop also hit crypto exchanges directly. Several venues, including markets built on Hyperliquid, list perpetual contracts that track Nvidia shares, and those contracts saw about $56.7 million in liquidations. That is more than Solana and over four times the total for XRP.
| Asset | 7-day change | 24h liquidations |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | -6.90% | $305.63M |
| Ether (ETH) | -12.65% | $125.18M |
| Solana (SOL) | -11.25% | $23.46M |
| XRP | -19.27% | $13.04M |
| Hyperliquid (HYPE) | -11.30% | $7.86M |
Market data as of November 12, 2026, 15:35 UTC
Bitcoin Lost Its $72,600 Floor
On the 4-hour Binance chart, each Bitcoin rebound since the failed push toward $81,000 on November 5 has peaked lower than the one before. On Thursday, a single candle fell from $72,957 to $71,255 on some of the week’s heaviest trading volume, breaking the $72,600 area that held on November 10 and 11. The MACD, a momentum gauge that compares short-term and longer-term price averages, has dropped back below its signal line. This means the price steadied only briefly this week, and sellers now control the short-term trend. If the price bounces, $72,600 is the first level where it could run into selling, with $73,800 above it. On the downside, $70,000 is the next level traders are watching.
Dip Buyers Face an Nvidia Earnings Test on November 17
Selloffs driven by liquidations often run out of steam once the most heavily leveraged traders have been forced out. Nvidia’s problem this week also concerns governance, and nothing new suggests that demand for its chips has weakened. That second point will be tested on November 17, when Nvidia reports third-quarter results with Kress, CFO since 2013, presenting as interim CEO.
The data so far argues for caution. Bitcoin was already down 6.9% for the week before Huang resigned, and XRP had lost more than 19%, so Thursday sped up a decline that was already underway. Oppenheimer also downgraded Nvidia and withdrew its price target.
A December Hike Is Fully Priced After Hot CPI
Consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, above the 0.3% economists expected, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% for the third month in a row. Fed Governor Christopher Waller had said that morning that a half-point hike should be considered in December if core inflation came in around 0.3%. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee later called the report “borderline disturbing.”
Futures now treat a December increase as a near-certainty, and CME’s FedWatch tool puts the odds of a half-point move at about 15%. That would come on top of the September hike to 3.75%-4.00%. Higher rates make leveraged trades more expensive and raise the return on cash, which weighs on an asset that pays no income. The 10-year Treasury yield had already climbed to 4.86% after the October jobs report.
Little on the calendar can change that pricing before the meeting, since the November jobs report on December 4 is the last employment data before the December 8-9 meeting. November CPI comes out on December 10, a day after the decision, which makes the core PCE index due later this month the final inflation reading the Fed will see. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan has already said she is worried it could also come in hot.
