Bitcoin (BTC) slid to fresh multimonth lows after Thursday's Wall Street open as selling pressure returned to the U.S. stock market, with the resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang weighing on equities and digital assets alike.

Bitcoin's losses reached 3.5% on the day, while analysts flagged Friday's U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) release as the next key volatility event for the BTC price.

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD dropping below $72,000 for the first time since Aug. 20, with month-to-date losses reaching 7.4%.

Nvidia appoints interim CEO as stock plummets

Turmoil at Nvidia following the immediate resignation of CEO Jensen Huang dragged stock markets downward, with NVDA falling nearly 13% at the Wall Street open. Shares fell as low as $148.80 before rebounding to around $160, down 7.2% on the day at the time of writing.

Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, built the chipmaker into one of the world's most valuable companies and a central player in the artificial intelligence boom.

“Colette Kress, current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NVIDIA, has agreed to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer. Kress will continue to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer while serving as Interim Chief Executive Officer until a permanent successor has been named,” the company stated in a press release.

“The Board is initiating a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer and will consider internal and external candidates.”

Economist Mohamed El-Erian described Huang's resignation as a “significant development” that would have implications beyond Nvidia itself.

“The situation will remain in the spotlight, not only as the company navigates the loss of its highly-influential founder, but also as various political investigations (formal and informal) unfold,” he wrote in an analysis.

Despite the selling pressure on Nvidia's shares, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index avoided major losses at the open, trading 0.6% lower at the time of writing.

Analyst looks to PPI release for BTC price cues

BTC/USD fell back below its 21-week simple moving average (SMA), which stood at $73,078 on Wednesday. The 21-week SMA is a long-term trend indicator commonly used by analysts to gauge whether an asset's broader uptrend remains intact.

Assessing near-term macro volatility catalysts beyond Nvidia, Keith Alan, cofounder of crypto trading platform Material Indicators, highlighted Friday's U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) release. The PPI measures price changes from the perspective of U.S. producers and complements the consumer-focused CPI in the monthly inflation data watched by the Federal Reserve.

On Tuesday, the October print of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in above expectations, causing markets to price in more interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Rate expectations matter for crypto because the asset class is sensitive to the liquidity conditions shaped by Federal Reserve policy.

“Fundamentally, a cool PPI report that lowers the odds of aggressive rate hikes in December/January could easily flip this script bullish,” Alan wrote on X. He added that if the PPI comes in line with market expectations, the spot price could move between nearby patches of exchange order-book liquidity.

The latest data from CoinGlass showed BTC/USD cutting through a patch of bid liquidity as 24-hour crypto liquidations hit $730 million. Liquidations occur when exchanges forcibly close leveraged positions whose margin no longer covers potential losses, a mechanic that can amplify volatility during sharp price moves.

Source: Cointelegraph