Bitcoin sank to $68,000 overnight, its lowest price since August, extending a slide of more than 20% since early October. Xapo Bank CEO Seamus Rocca attributes the latest dip to demand for Anthropic’s IPO, which Bloomberg reported was about six times oversubscribed and could raise as much as $64.4 billion, pulling capital out of liquid markets. Other analysts see no direct link between Nvidia’s troubles and bitcoin’s decline, pointing instead to broad risk reduction: short bets above the August peak, outflows from BlackRock’s IBIT, extreme fear and the prospect of a 50-basis-point rate hike within 30 days. Strive CEO Matt Cole notes bitcoin fell about the same amount before SpaceX’s June IPO and then recovered, though the SpaceX drop also coincided with worries about Strategy’s bitcoin sales.
The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a Nov. 19 hearing for President Trump’s two new SEC nominees within hours of their announcement: Steven Levine, a former Labor Department lawyer and deputy chief of staff to Commissioner Mark Uyeda, and Kristin Johnson, a Democrat and former CFTC commissioner who’s now a George Washington University law professor. The White House also named two CFTC nominees, Republican Nathan Anonick and Democrat Matthew Rowland, but the Senate Agriculture Committee hasn’t yet scheduled a hearing. Naming Democrats is unusual for an administration that has otherwise removed them from regulatory commissions, and it would end stretches in which the SEC has had only two Republican members and the CFTC only its chairman, Mike Selig. The current congressional session ends in early January.
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, said its new preferred revenue measure, total platform margin, fell 12% from a year earlier to $487 million in the third quarter as subdued trading cut fees. The metric replaces adjusted revenue and deducts staking rewards paid to clients along with trading costs. Income tied to client assets and access to products, data and services rose to 52% of the total from 46% a year earlier as the company expanded into banking, asset management and infrastructure services, and it added AI as a fifth business pillar. There were signs of recovery: platform margin rose 12% from the second quarter, and adjusted earnings, still well below a year ago, improved as trading picked up. CoinDesk has previously reported talks with Wells Fargo and BNY, citing people familiar with the discussions.
A bearish momentum signal is flashing on bitcoin’s weekly chart, with history pointing to a possible drop below $60,000. Plus: Payward’s earnings, SpaceX-Tesla merger talks, and Nakamoto’s debt to Kraken.
Friday, November 13, 2026
A bitcoin momentum gauge is turning red again, and a repeat of its historical pattern could send the price of the largest cryptocurrency back below $60,000, a level not seen since July. A turn into negative territory in the moving average convergence divergence (MACD) histogram signals a bearish shift in momentum, and this week’s bar has dipped below zero, with the signal confirmed if the bar remains negative at Sunday’s weekly close. The movement has already caught the eye of some analysts and crypto social media users who are worried about a deeper drop, including Josh Taylor of analytics firm 7th Key Financial, who said the weekly MACD is rolling over with a bear cross. The question is how deep the drop could go, and in particular whether prices could fall to bitcoin’s 2026 low of around $57,700, another 16% below current levels. History suggests that is possible: since November 2012 the indicator has turned bearish 24 times, and in 13 of them, roughly half, bitcoin fell at least 16% from the price at the time the signal was confirmed, according to data analyzed by CoinDesk. The slides were often fast, with five of the 13 reaching the 16% mark within a week of the signal, 10 within four weeks and a median of three weeks, and in the worst cases, including the signals in August 2014 and April 2022, bitcoin lost more than half its value. But the declines might be more controlled: on 11 occasions the price fell less than 16%, including the most recent one, in June, when bitcoin fell just 3% to $57,700 before rebounding. As always, past performance does not guarantee future results, and no indicator is fully reliable on a standalone basis. Still, the latest signal is appearing at a time when institutions are pulling out of spot ETFs and a strong U.S. dollar is creating a headwind for risk assets. Stay alert.
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, said its preferred measure of revenue fell 12% in the third quarter from a year earlier as trading fees declined on subdued market activity. Total platform margin, which replaces adjusted revenue and deducts staking rewards paid to clients alongside trading costs, fell to $487 million, according to a blog post shared with CoinDesk, but it rose 12% from the second quarter as trading picked up, and adjusted earnings, though well below the year-earlier figure, also improved. Income tied to client assets and access to products, data and services rose to 52% of the total from 46% a year earlier as Payward expanded beyond crypto trading into banking, asset management and infrastructure for other companies, and it added artificial intelligence as a fifth business pillar, with plans for a personal finance agent and investment funds built on its xStocks tokenized equities platform. The company is not alone in grappling with low volumes: Coinbase’s third-quarter revenue fell 35% year over year, and Gemini Space Station reported a 19% revenue decline and a 73% slump in volumes. CoinDesk previously reported that Payward has held talks with Wells Fargo about supplying liquidity for crypto trading and has discussed a financial-infrastructure partnership with BNY.
SpaceX-Tesla merger talks put 30,000 bitcoin back in focus
SpaceX and Tesla could announce a merger as soon as December, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter, though the announcement could still slip into early 2027. The boards and their advisers are working out terms and how the combined company would be run. A deal would bring together almost 30,220 bitcoin, with SpaceX holding 18,712 BTC and Tesla 11,509 at the end of September, according to their quarterly filings, both unchanged from December 2025. At a bitcoin price near $69,000 that is about $2.1 billion, a sliver of the roughly $3.4 trillion the two companies are worth together, and a merger alone would not require either company to buy more bitcoin. AI ambitions are central to the rationale for the talks, according to Bloomberg, while one obstacle is how to keep Tesla’s large Chinese manufacturing operations separate from SpaceX’s sensitive U.S. government and defense work. Tesla’s board has formed an independent committee to assess a possible combination, and the company’s annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for Dec. 3.
Bitcoin firm Nakamoto owes Kraken $165 million, more than its entire market value
David Bailey’s Nakamoto, whose main business is holding bitcoin, owes crypto exchange Kraken 165 million USDT on a loan backed only by its bitcoin, more than the roughly $104 million market value implied by Thursday’s $5.79 share price, and has just pushed its remaining payments into 2027. Under an amendment signed Wednesday and disclosed in an 8-K filing, the 60 million USDT that was due Dec. 4 now matures Dec. 4, 2027, while the other 105 million USDT is still due June 30, 2027. About 3,030 of Nakamoto’s 4,283 bitcoin were pledged to Kraken at the end of September, and at a price under $69,000 those coins are worth roughly $208 million, about 126% of what it owes, according to CoinDesk calculations, with about 1,253 unpledged bitcoin, worth roughly $86 million, left to post if the collateral value falls below a maintenance level. Kraken also agreed to count the net value of Nakamoto’s bitcoin derivatives positions, including put options, toward the loan’s collateral requirements, though its protective puts expire Dec. 25, before the debt comes due. Nakamoto’s chief investment officer, Tyler Evans, said the amendment extends the company’s runway and makes its collateral position more resilient. The loan started last December at $210 million and 8% a year.
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