📉 Bitcoin Wipes Out 2024 Gains

PLUS: Death cross fears, MSTR discounts, and Tom Lee’s “shark hunt” theory define this week’s selloff.

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Cryptopolitan News
November 17, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

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Bitcoin just did something it was last able to in 2013: erase its gains for the year with a sharp move lower.

Bitcoin slipping below $93,714 has now erased all of its 2024 gains, but the selloff is macro, not crypto-specific. Rate-cut odds for December plummeted to 44.4%, the U.S. shutdown is over, and a flood of delayed economic data this week could skew hot.

One upside surprise and Fed may delay cuts into 2026.

Risk assets are trembling across the board. Gold reclaims demand at $4,099; AI stocks nervous heading into Nvidia earnings and ETF inflows: Bitcoin’s biggest tailwind in 2024 pause after a $25B run.

🩸 Death cross jitters, HODL math and Tom Lee’s “shark hunt” theory

The chart looks ugly on the surface. And a death cross is in the offing, the 50-day moving average sliding beneath the 200-day moving average, a pattern that traders have long loved to brandish as bearish.

But here’s the twist:

Each one of this cycle’s death crosses arrived near a local bottom, not top.

  • ~$25K in Sep 2023

  • About 49K in Aug 2024 (with yen carry unwind)

  • Apr 2025 (tariff shock): ~$75K

Now we’re at ~$94K, down 25% over 41 days, still milder than April’s 30% over 79 days. Sentiment is washed out. The Fear & Greed Index is at 10.

And into this mayhem, Tom Lee is floating his own theory: the selloff “has all the signs” of a market maker with a balance-sheet hole being hunted by sharks, not an existential break down of the crypto thesis.

His reminder to investors:

  1. Bitcoin has withstood six 50%+ crashes

  2. Three 75% drawdowns

  3. And yet provided ~100x over 8.5 years

His view: you don't 100x without surviving multiple "this is the end" moments. And he believes Ethereum is now going through that same brutal-but-profitable process.

🔍 So where does Bitcoin fit in all of that?

Right between macro gravity and supercycle faith:

  • The Fed put is fading

  • Gold demand is resurfacing

  • ETFS and the corporates are taking a break

  • Leverage is getting flushed

  • Whales are still quietly accumulating

The chart suggests we’re near a classic cycle inflection.
Macro suggests more chop is possible.

But historically, Bitcoin’s most substantial legs happened right around the time that the market had given up believing that they could.

Only this time, there is only one real question:

Is this another one of those “survive and advance” situations, or a setup for the next moment of asymmetric opportunity?

POLL: Do you think Bitcoin has bottomed?

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📊 Market Watch

1️⃣ A Hyperliquid whale is gambling on altcoin comeback

A Hyperliquid whale just entered long positioning of 3.6M on ETH, BNB, LTC, AVAX and a basket of memes (FARTCOIN, PEPE, BONK, PNUT and POPCAT).

They are down $276K unrealized, with most of the loss coming from a HYPE position (-$293K), but they still hold it.

2️⃣ Oracle, Palantir & Super Micro surge into “deep oversold” status

In a punishing week for AI and tech, several U.S. names hit multi-month low RSI readings:

  • Oracle: RSI ~24

  • Super Micro (SMCI): RSI <27

  • Palantir: Earnings and Burry’s short call contribute to heavy volatility

3️⃣ According to this report nearly half the U.S. is sliding toward recession, but only for some

A Moody Analytics map shared by The Kobeissi Letter shows 23 U.S. states now in recession or at high risk, up from 22 last month. These states account for one-third of U.S. economic output.

 đŸ‘€ Are You Watching?

Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. (MSTR) traded below its net asset value for the first time in almost two years after Bitcoins price dropped below $100K effectively offering investors a 6% discount on BTC exposure through the stock.

  • MSTR market cap: $57.4B

  • Bitcoin held: 641,205 BTC (~$61.3B)

  • Market-to-NAV ratio: 0.977x

That’s a rare territory, and it has the entire market wondering what comes next.

Why it matters

Strategy’s model only works under the condition when stock trades at premium, enabling it to issue new shares and purchase further BTC without penalizing long holders. Below 1.0, that math breaks.

Dom Kwok warns:

❝

“No corporate BTC treasury trade stays under NAV for long without pressure.”

But here’s the twist

Arca CIO Jeff Dorman says fears of forced BTC selling are nonsense:

  • No liquidation-triggering covenants

  • Significant positive cash flow in software business

  • Saylor still owns ~42% voting power.

  • Debt can be rolled indefinitely (“extend and pretend”)

His view: ETFs matter far more to BTC’s price than Strategy ever could.

Then Peter Schiff showed up

Schiff labeled Strategy’s funding model as a “fraud,” the company’s preferred-share structure unviable, and issued a public invitation for Saylor to engage him in a real-time debate at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai later this month.

Medium articles we are reading

Monday headline picks

Monday Morning GIF

🎭 Culture Watch

In a series of posts, Szabo argued that while Bitcoin minimizes trust, it can’t eliminate it, and still has a “legal attack surface” that powerful institutions can exploit.
His point: miners, node operators, and custodial services all live in real-world jurisdictions, meaning governments can fine, regulate, or censor them if they choose.

POLL: Do you agree with Nick Szabo?

“Bitcoin isn’t fully resistant to government attacks.”

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