Bitcoin fell below what this year's buyers paid

Bitcoin is at $67,992 this morning. It fell through $70,000 overnight, and it is now under the price that each of its three biggest groups of buyers this year paid: the investors in the US bitcoin funds, Strategy, and everyone who bought in the last five months.

Thursday's fall began when Nvidia's board accepted Jensen Huang's resignation, effective immediately, and AI shares fell. Exchanges closed more than $750 million of leveraged crypto bets over the day, most of them bets on a rise. Then, in the small hours of this morning, bitcoin went through $70,000 with no new piece of news behind it.

When a price falls under what everyone paid, the usual reading is that the fall is nearly done. The people who were going to give up have given up, the fear gauge reads 20 out of 100, and the usual advice is that extreme fear is the time to buy.

So set the price against the buyers. By our count from the daily flow figures, the funds' investors paid about $79,000 on average for the bitcoin they bought since August. Strategy's average cost, by its own report on Monday, is $75,456. Glassnode puts everyone who bought in the last five months at a loss on average as well.

There is one earlier stretch in our record where this happened. In May the funds' investors started selling while the price was still above what they had paid, and in the last week of the month the price went under it. If the usual reading were right, that was the moment to buy.

We went back through the daily record from May to August, set the price against what the funds' investors had paid each week, and set their flows beside it. Then we did the same for the last two weeks, in which the price went under the funds' average buyer at the end of October, investors took money out on eight of the nine trading days since, and last week was the heaviest week of withdrawals since June.

The low came weeks after the crossing and well below it, and the funds' investors did most of their selling after the price had gone under what they paid.