Bitcoin Slides to Three-Week Low Under $77K Amid Bear Dominance

TheNewsCryptoPublished on 2026-05-18Last updated on 2026-05-18

Abstract

Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped to a three-week low below $77,000, erasing gains made since early May. This decline follows a recent surge to 13-week highs above $83,000, driven by optimism around US crypto regulation and strong ETF inflows. Over $600 million in long positions were liquidated in the past day, with $190 million from Bitcoin. Analysts point to a negative technical divergence as BTC faced resistance above $82,000. Key support is seen at $76,000; a break below could target the $71,000-$73,000 zone or even the $65,000 local low. Geopolitical tensions, including US-Iran relations and oil supply concerns, contributed to broader market volatility.

In the last three days, the price of bitcoin (BTC) has fallen to a three-week low of $76,500, according to data from CMC. This wipes out all advances that bitcoin has achieved since May 1. Losses follow days of gains for the Bitcoin/USD pair, which surged to 13-week highs above $83,000 on the strength of optimism surrounding the US CLARITY Act and heavy inflows into spot exchange-traded funds. At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $76,829, down 1.66% as per data from CMC.

On Sunday, American President Donald Trump warned that the “clock is ticking” and made new threats against Iran over the peace agreement’s delays. In the last day, there has been a $607 million surge in long liquidations, with $190 million of the total coming from Bitcoin long liquidations.

With this, the total amount liquidated in the last 24 hours reached $677 million. While oil prices were volatile, WTI rose more than 3% in a few hours to $104/bbl before retracing to $101. With Trump’s apparent impatience with the peace negotiations reaching a stalemate and the expiration of a waiver for Russian oil deliveries adding to supply concerns around the still-disrupted Strait of Hormuz, WTI climbed beyond $103.

Fears of a Deeper Market Correction

Bitcoin investors, meanwhile, studied the technical setup in hopes of predicting the cryptocurrency’s future price movement. We are now seeing a downturn, according to analysts, since there was a negative divergence from the relative index when BTC/USD encountered resistance above $82,000.

According to crypto expert Michael van de Poppe, the market should avoid a catastrophic collapse if the $76,000 level of immediate support remains intact. Should this region be penetrated, further support levels to keep an eye on include the $71,000–73,000 demand zone and the local low at $65,000. The objective of an inverted V-shaped pattern is at $65,000, which is also the local low. From the current pricing, this is a 16% decrease.

Highlighted Crypto News Today:

Kraken Cuts 150+ Jobs as AI Reshapes Crypto Exchange Operations

Putting Markets On-Chain: Canton Network Quietly Becomes the New Backbone of Institutional Finance

**Title: Letting the Market Itself Go On-Chain: Canton Network Quietly Becomes the New Backbone for Institutional Finance** **Summary:** The Canton Network, a blockchain platform designed for institutional finance, is gaining significant traction. A key sign of its maturity was Visa's recent entry as a super-validator, a proposal approved in just three days—highlighting prior, extensive collaboration between traditional finance and crypto. Unlike public chains like Ethereum that prioritize transparency and asset onboarding, Canton focuses on enabling confidential, compliant business operations for regulated institutions. Its core design features built-in **data visibility control**, meaning transaction details are only shared between direct counterparties. This privacy is fundamental, allowing competing institutions (like banks Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and BNP Paribas, all validators) to interact on the same network without exposing sensitive positions or strategies. Developed by Wall Street veterans at Digital Asset, Canton has taken a slow, deliberate approach to onboard real financial activity. It now handles over **$9 trillion monthly** in transaction volume, primarily from real-world institutional use cases like **tokenized repo agreements**, Treasury settlements, and collateral mobility. Major live applications include **JPM Coin** for institutional payments and **DTCC's tokenized U.S. Treasuries** project. Canton's native token, **CC**, is framed as a "network utility asset" with zero pre-mine or VC allocations. Its value is intended to be driven by the volume of real financial activity on the network. Looking ahead, Canton aims to become the invisible foundational layer for global finance—enabling atomic settlement (where payment and asset delivery occur simultaneously), 24/7 capital flows, and the native issuance and settlement of various asset classes, from corporate bonds to potentially equities. The main challenges are no longer technical but involve navigating fragmented global regulations and integrating with legacy financial systems.

marsbit4m ago

Putting Markets On-Chain: Canton Network Quietly Becomes the New Backbone of Institutional Finance

marsbit4m ago

By The Numbers: How Much Bitcoin Supply Is Exposed To Quantum Risk?

Glassnode estimates that 6.04 million BTC, representing over 30% of the circulating supply, is potentially exposed to quantum computing risk. The risk arises when a wallet's public key is visible on the blockchain, which quantum computers could theoretically use to break cryptographic security. This exposed supply is divided into two categories: structurally unsafe coins (1.92 million BTC, 9.6%) due to older wallet designs, and operationally unsafe coins (4.12 million BTC, 20.6%) where practices like address reuse have revealed public keys. While structurally unsafe supply has decreased over time, operationally unsafe supply has grown. The remaining 13.99 million BTC are considered safe. Concurrently, Bitcoin's price is near $77,000, down over 3% weekly.

bitcoinist22m ago

By The Numbers: How Much Bitcoin Supply Is Exposed To Quantum Risk?

bitcoinist22m ago

It's Bankless That Needs Ethereum, Not Ethereum That Needs Bankless

Titled "Bankless Needs Ethereum, Not the Other Way Around," this article analyzes the significant recent news involving Bankless, a prominent crypto media outlet. Bankless co-founder David Hoffman announced the sale of all his ETH holdings, while the company also reportedly underwent major layoffs, with its founders parting ways. The news, likened to a high-profile defection, initially sent shockwaves through the Ethereum community, given Bankless's historical role as a key evangelist and "semi-official" narrative builder for Ethereum. For years, through its podcasts and writings, Bankless championed core Ethereum ideas like "ultrasound money" and the blockchain's role as a new financial settlement layer, acting as a crucial community hub and belief system during its growth phase. However, the article argues this development is not necessarily negative for Ethereum. It suggests Bankless's "first mission"—serving as Ethereum's passionate, inward-facing "propaganda department"—has largely been completed. As Ethereum matures and moves towards mainstream, institutional adoption, the narrative baton has shifted. Today, the value propositions of ETH are increasingly communicated to traditional finance by asset managers like BlackRock and VanEck, public companies adding ETH to their treasuries, and established financial figures. This represents a natural evolution towards a more decentralized, professional, and institutionally-focused narrative network. Therefore, while Bankless's retreat marks the end of an era, it signifies Ethereum's growing resilience and its reduced reliance on any single entity for belief, as its story is now carried forward by a broader and more mature ecosystem of advocates.

链捕手26m ago

It's Bankless That Needs Ethereum, Not Ethereum That Needs Bankless

链捕手26m ago

Google Officially Declares War

Google Declares War with AI-First I/O 2026 At its 2026 I/O developer conference, Google launched an aggressive, multi-pronged offensive, embedding AI across its ecosystem and challenging rivals on performance and price. The event showcased three major releases: Gemini 3.5 Flash, the video-centric Gemini Omni Flash, and the system-level AI assistant Spark. Gemini 3.5 Flash, despite being a smaller "Flash" model, outperforms its Pro counterpart in key benchmarks like mathematical reasoning (GSM8K) and coding (SWE-bench). Google attributes this to "extreme knowledge distillation" from a larger teacher model and a novel, highly granular MoE (Mixture of Experts) architecture with 256 experts, achieving sub-65ms response times. The native multi-modal model, Gemini Omni Flash, offers real-time video understanding with 120ms latency, enabling applications like preventing a cup from overfilling. The new Spark assistant gains deep Android system integration, allowing it to automate complex multi-app workflows based on voice commands. Complementing these, Google unveiled lightweight AI glasses featuring Micro-OLED displays and on-device Gemini chips for instant, offline translation and scene analysis. CEO Sundar Pichai announced Gemini has reached 900 million monthly active users, leveraged through integration into Chrome, Android, and Workspace. Google also slashed prices dramatically: the Gemini 3.5 Flash API is priced at a fraction of competitor rates. This price war is enabled by Google's vertically integrated TPU infrastructure. The strategy signals a shift: standalone AI models are becoming commoditized. Google's advantage lies in its "device + cloud + ecosystem + hardware" integration, aiming to reshape internet traffic from user-initiated searches to AI-driven service distribution. This move pressures pure-play AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic on business models, and challenges Apple to respond in the next-generation, screen-less device race.

链捕手45m ago

链捕手45m ago

Top 10 Promising Emerging Hyperliquid Native Protocols to Watch

Title: A Review of 10 Emerging Native Protocols on Hyperliquid Hyperliquid is evolving beyond perpetual contracts into a comprehensive on-chain financial stack. This article highlights 10 key native protocols driving this growth: 1. **Monetrix**: A yield-optimizing protocol akin to Ethena, aggregating funding rates, HLP rewards, maker rebates, and HIP-3 into a single stablecoin yield. 2. **ROSETTA**: An automated stablecoin yield router, allocating USDC across top protocols (e.g., Felix, Aave, HLP) for optimal returns, factoring in gas and slippage. 3. **papertrade.xyz**: A fair-launched perpetuals protocol offering up to 1000x leverage, no funding rates, no slippage, and fully on-chain, oracle-based execution. 4. **alt.fun**: A launchpad where tokens are paired with leveraged perpetual positions (2x-5x), linking token price to trading activity and underlying position performance. 5. **Ventuals**: Pre-IPO perpetual contracts (built on HIP-3) allowing up to 10x leveraged speculation on valuations of private companies like SpaceX and Stripe. 6. **Liminal**: A delta-neutral yield protocol that captures funding rates via automated short positions and uses generated xTokens (xBTC, etc.) as DeFi collateral. 7. **Melt**: Brings tokenized stocks, commodities, and RWAs to Hyperliquid spot markets, enabling 24/7 trading alongside crypto assets. 8. **Chainsight**: An oracle and data infrastructure protocol providing low-latency (<3s) price feeds, volatility indices, and risk metrics for novel derivatives. 9. **rip.xyz**: Tokenized vault strategies on HyperEVM; its flagship rHYPURR offers liquidity and fractional exposure to a Hypurr NFT basket, priced hourly via NAV. 10. **Markets**: A perpetuals exchange (by Kinetiq) for trading stocks, forex, commodities, bonds, and crypto with up to 50x leverage, using USDH collateral and Kaiko oracles. These protocols form the foundational layer for generating real yield, liquidity, and innovative financial products natively on Hyperliquid.

marsbit1h ago

Top 10 Promising Emerging Hyperliquid Native Protocols to Watch

marsbit1h ago

Trading

Spot

Futures

Hot Articles

What is $BITCOIN

DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN): A Comprehensive Analysis Introduction to DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) is a blockchain-based project operating on the Solana network, which aims to combine the characteristics of traditional precious metals with the innovation of decentralized technologies. While it shares a name with Bitcoin, often referred to as “digital gold” due to its perception as a store of value, DIGITAL GOLD is a separate token designed to create a unique ecosystem within the Web3 landscape. Its goal is to position itself as a viable alternative digital asset, although specifics regarding its applications and functionalities are still developing. What is DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN)? DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) is a cryptocurrency token explicitly designed for use on the Solana blockchain. In contrast to Bitcoin, which provides a widely recognized value storage role, this token appears to focus on broader applications and characteristics. Notable aspects include: Blockchain Infrastructure: The token is built on the Solana blockchain, known for its capacity to handle high-speed and low-cost transactions. Supply Dynamics: DIGITAL GOLD has a maximum supply capped at 100 quadrillion tokens (100P $BITCOIN), although details regarding its circulating supply are currently undisclosed. Utility: While precise functionalities are not explicitly outlined, there are indications that the token could be utilized for various applications, potentially involving decentralized applications (dApps) or asset tokenization strategies. Who is the Creator of DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN)? At present, the identity of the creators and development team behind DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) remains unknown. This situation is typical among many innovative projects within the blockchain space, particularly those aligning with decentralized finance and meme coin phenomena. While such anonymity may foster a community-driven culture, it intensifies concerns about governance and accountability. Who are the Investors of DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN)? The available information indicates that DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) does not have any known institutional backers or prominent venture capital investments. The project seems to operate on a peer-to-peer model focused on community support and adoption rather than traditional funding routes. Its activity and liquidity are primarily situated on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), such as PumpSwap, rather than established centralized trading platforms, further highlighting its grassroots approach. How DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) Works The operational mechanics of DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) can be elaborated on based on its blockchain design and network attributes: Consensus Mechanism: By leveraging Solana’s unique proof-of-history (PoH) combined with a proof-of-stake (PoS) model, the project ensures efficient transaction validation contributing to the network's high performance. Tokenomics: While specific deflationary mechanisms have not been extensively detailed, the vast maximum token supply implies that it may cater to microtransactions or niche use cases that are still to be defined. Interoperability: There exists the potential for integration with Solana’s broader ecosystem, including various decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. However, the details regarding specific integrations remain unspecified. Timeline of Key Events Here is a timeline that highlights significant milestones concerning DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN): 2023: The initial deployment of the token occurs on the Solana blockchain, marked by its contract address. 2024: DIGITAL GOLD gains visibility as it becomes available for trading on decentralized exchanges like PumpSwap, allowing users to trade it against SOL. 2025: The project witnesses sporadic trading activity and potential interest in community-led engagements, although no noteworthy partnerships or technical advancements have been documented as of yet. Critical Analysis Strengths Scalability: The underlying Solana infrastructure supports high transaction volumes, which could enhance the utility of $BITCOIN in various transaction scenarios. Accessibility: The potential low trading price per token could attract retail investors, facilitating wider participation due to fractional ownership opportunities. Risks Lack of Transparency: The absence of publicly known backers, developers, or an audit process may yield skepticism regarding the project's sustainability and trustworthiness. Market Volatility: The trading activity is heavily reliant on speculative behavior, which can result in significant price volatility and uncertainty for investors. Conclusion DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) emerges as an intriguing yet ambiguous project within the rapidly evolving Solana ecosystem. While it attempts to leverage the “digital gold” narrative, its departure from Bitcoin's established role as a store of value underscores the need for a clearer differentiation of its intended utility and governance structure. Future acceptance and adoption will likely depend on addressing the current opacity and defining its operational and economic strategies more explicitly. Note: This report encompasses synthesised information available as of October 2023, and developments may have transpired beyond the research period.

363 Total ViewsPublished 2025.05.13Updated 2025.05.13

Meet ZetaChain: The Universal L1 for Apps That Work Everywhere — Even on Bitcoin

ZetaChain is the first ever Universal Blockchain to enable native connection across all blockchain ecosystems.

48.2k Total ViewsPublished 2025.06.16Updated 2025.06.16

Meet ZetaChain: The Universal L1 for Apps That Work Everywhere — Even on Bitcoin

Fractal Bitcoin: Scaling Bitcoin as a Recursive System

Fractal Bitcoin is a Layer-1 scalability solution built on the Bitcoin core code, enabling infinite scalability through a recursive approach.

47.6k Total ViewsPublished 2025.06.30Updated 2025.06.30

Fractal Bitcoin: Scaling Bitcoin as a Recursive System

Discussions

Welcome to the HTX Community. Here, you can stay informed about the latest platform developments and gain access to professional market insights. Users' opinions on the price of BTC (BTC) are presented below.