Bitcoin's Roller Coaster: What Caused the Sharp Drop After Hitting $70K?

Bitcoin Pulls Back Sharply After Touching $70K

The price of bitcoin still appears poised to close out July with sizable gains after plunging below $54,000 earlier in the month.

In what's become a familiar pattern over the past few months, a rally in bitcoin (BTC) to a key level was met with a wave of selling. On Monday morning U.S. hours, the price quickly plunged more than 3% after pushing above $70,000 for the first time since early June. At press time, bitcoin was changing hands at $67,800, roughly flat over the past 24 hours. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index was higher by 1.1% over the same time frame, helped along by sizable gains for bitcoin cash (BCH), litecoin (LTC), and solana (SOL).

Traders will recognize this price pattern in 2024, which first manifested in mid-January when bitcoin climbed to a multi-year high of $47,000 just after the spot ETFs opened for trade. That move higher was reversed within minutes as bitcoin days later had tumbled below $40,000 before the uptrend began anew.

Similar price action was seen in early March after bitcoin pushed to a then new all-time high above $69,000, only to find itself below $60,000 hours later. Later that month, a move to another record above $73,500 was snuffed out quickly, and more than four months later that level hasn't been challenged again.

While the above might be frustrating for leveraged traders, technicians might note a pattern as each of these examples shows higher highs and higher lows – the sort of "up and to the right" chart that bulls like to see. Earlier in July, bitcoin plunged below $54,000 as a German government entity began unloading its stash of 50,000 tokens seized in a criminal case. Yet just a couple of days before August hits, bitcoin is poised to close the month with a sizable gain from the $63,000 area it started in.

Read more: The Clock Has Ticked on Bitcoin's Post Halving Surge, 100 Days After the Latest Quadrennial Halving.

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