Bitcoin's price tumbled roughly 14% over the past week, trading near $65,200 on Saturday morning after sliding to about $65,000, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data. The move broke below Friday's low of about $67,555 and marked the weakest level since mid-August, as weekend trading extended a selloff that has followed a stronger dollar and a December Federal Reserve rate hike that is now fully priced in.

A week ago, on Nov. 7, bitcoin was trading near $75,750. The decline steepened after Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday, a shake-up that caused AI stocks to sell off and could potentially be responsible for sending bitcoin below $72,000. The asset slipped toward $71,000 by Thursday evening, then crashed to about $67,555 around midnight Eastern on Friday — its lowest level since August — before recovering toward $69,800 in the morning.

A brief pop above $70,000 after the producer-price report quickly faded, and the bitcoin price spent Friday afternoon pinned below $70,000, near $68,900. Selling resumed Friday evening and carried the price into the mid-$66,000s. After briefly steadying overnight near $67,000, bitcoin sold off again after 8 a.m. ET Saturday, reaching a $65,500 low in the 10 a.m. hour and taking out Friday's trough.

A Stronger Dollar and Higher Yields Still Weigh on Bitcoin

The Labor Department said Friday that the Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.3% in October, short of the 0.4% increase economists had expected. On an unadjusted basis, the index was up 6.5% from a year earlier — the largest 12-month rise since November 2022. The slightly cooler monthly figure lifted bitcoin above $70,000 for only minutes.

Bond traders were unconvinced. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed as high as 5.17% on Friday, a four-week high, and closed at 5.15%. The U.S. dollar index held at a 19-month high, its strongest level since April 2025.

Boston Fed President Susan Collins said Friday that "soon, some additional tightening of Fed monetary policy may be appropriate," and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said policymakers will "in all likelihood, raise interest rates." Higher rates raise the cost of holding an asset that pays no interest, and a stronger dollar has weighed on the bitcoin price for much of November. Traders fully priced a quarter-point hike at the Fed's Dec. 8-9 meeting, CME FedWatch data show.

Chip stocks offered no cushion. The iShares Semiconductor ETF fell more than 3% on Friday, and Advanced Micro Devices dropped more than 8%, while the Nasdaq 100 closed down 1.22%. U.S. stock and bond markets are closed Saturday, but those levels still frame the weekend session. Nvidia is due to report third-quarter results on Tuesday under interim CEO Colette Kress, the first earnings release since Huang stepped down.

ETF Outflows Continue as Mining Difficulty Drops

Demand from spot bitcoin ETFs has not filled the gap. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the largest of the spot bitcoin ETFs, bled $2 billion over nine straight days of outflows through Wednesday, and the funds posted a sixth straight day of net outflows on Thursday. Weekend trading is typically thinner, leaving the bitcoin price more exposed to sharp swings in either direction.

Miners got some relief overnight. Bitcoin's mining difficulty dropped 9.13% at 12:02 a.m. ET Saturday at block 975,744, falling from about 148.36 trillion to 134.82 trillion — the largest cut since June. Difficulty adjusts automatically every 2,016 blocks to keep average block times near 10 minutes, and a downward cut of this size reflects a prior stretch in which blocks were being found slower than that target.

The next tests for the bitcoin price arrive quickly. Traders will watch whether Saturday's slide holds below Friday's $67,555 low, and whether Nvidia's report on Tuesday extends the chip-stock weakness that has followed bitcoin lower all week. With a December rate hike fully priced and the dollar at a 19-month high, any further jump in yields when markets reopen could keep pressure on.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $65,100.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.