TL;DR
- Bitcoin fell below $70,000 on March 19 after reversing sharply from a $76,000 high reached earlier in the week and failing to hold post-FOMC support.
- The slide spread broadly across crypto, with ETH dropping below $2,200, XRP losing $1.50, and total market capitalization shrinking by $100 billion.
- One report tied the weakness to deliberate sales by long-term holders, including more than 1,650 BTC worth over $117 million sold Thursday morning.
Bitcoin’s slide below $70,000 on March 19 capped a jarring reversal from the week’s $76,000 peak and left the market asking how momentum vanished so quickly. The reversal gathered force after the Fed event and never truly stabilized. After touching its highest level in roughly six weeks on Tuesday, BTC slipped back to $74,000, wobbled ahead of the year’s second FOMC meeting, fell to just under $71,000 when rates were left unchanged, briefly bounced to $72,000, and then broke below $70,000 for the first time in a week. By then, confidence already looked visibly thinner.
Selling Pressure Spread Well Beyond Bitcoin
The damage did not stop with Bitcoin. The broader market moved as one risk-off trade. At the time of one market snapshot, BTC was still down 5% on the day, its market capitalization had fallen to $1.410 trillion, and its dominance over altcoins had eased to 56.3%. Elsewhere, Ethereum fell more than 6% and traded well below $2,200, XRP lost the $1.50 support area after a 3.5% drop, and the total crypto market cap had shed $100 billion from the previous day’s peak, landing near $2.5 trillion. Even isolated gainers could not change the tone.
On shorter time frames, the technical picture looked equally bruised. Heavy selling hit in waves and pushed price through every nearby floor. The one-hour Binance chart described March 18 as a steady deterioration: bitcoin opened near $74,000, traded in a tight $74,000 to $74,500 band, then broke lower around noon as large red candles drove it through $73,000, $72,000 and $71,500. Selling resumed overnight, and by early March 19 the price had broken below $71,000, touched roughly $69,500, and recovered only partially. Both RSI readings remained around oversold territory, hinting at fatigue, not certainty yet.
What made the selloff more unsettling was the source. Some of the market’s oldest hands were actively reducing exposure into weakness. Blockchain data showed at least two long-term holders selling more than 1,650 BTC worth over $117 million on Thursday morning. One veteran whale added another 650 BTC to an exit, while a separate early adopter from a 5,000 BTC stash sold 1,000 BTC in one move. The report stressed these were not forced liquidations but deliberate exits, raising a question for traders: whether other seasoned holders now decide to follow.
