Bitcoin Price Falls Below $72,000 as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Steps Down and Strategy (MSTR) Slides

Bitcoin price fell below $72,000 on Thursday morning, its lowest level since mid-August, after Nvidia said CEO Jensen Huang had resigned and Strategy shares slid following MSCI’s confirmation of an index exit, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.

The selling started after Wednesday’s close. Bitcoin slipped from about $74,700 to near $73,400 by 6 p.m. ET, then drifted sideways overnight. A second leg lower began around 6 a.m., and the bitcoin price briefly dipped to about $72,200 shortly after 8 a.m. The decline accelerated later in the morning, and bitcoin traded as low as about $71,670 around 9:29 a.m.

That move pushed the bitcoin price below the low near $72,700 it set after Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected inflation report. It now trades roughly $31,200 below where it stood one year ago.

Nvidia (NVDA) said Thursday that Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and a member of the board, effective immediately. The company named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO and appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first board chair. Kress will continue as chief financial officer while she serves in the interim role. The board is searching for a permanent successor and said it will consider internal and external candidates. Nvidia is still scheduled to report fiscal third-quarter results on Nov. 17.

The resignation follows reports of extramarital relationships, including one that has raised national security concerns in Washington. Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, had told CNBC that Huang should step down, saying he was “so vulnerable to extortion, blackmail.”

Nvidia shares fell about 13% at Thursday’s open. Nasdaq 100 futures were down about 1.4% and S&P 500 futures fell about 0.7%, while Dow futures were nearly flat. Intel, Marvell Technology and Micron were down between about 5% and 7.5%, and CoreWeave dropped about 16%, giving back most of Wednesday’s 24.7% surge. Data center firms IREN, Applied Digital and Core Scientific also traded lower.

Bitcoin price has moved with tech for most of this month. It fell on Monday when an earlier Nvidia probe rattled markets, then lagged Wednesday’s rebound in chip stocks. Thursday’s slide wiped out that small gain and then some.

Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, fell about 7% at the open after MSCI confirmed it will remove the stock from its indexes. MSCI’s November review removed Strategy from the MSCI USA Index, a step that also takes it out of the MSCI World and ACWI indexes, effective at the Nov. 30 close. Japan’s Metaplanet is also slated for removal.

Index funds will sell MSTR shares, not bitcoin, and nothing in the rules requires Strategy to sell its coins. Still, a weaker stock makes it harder for the company to raise money for new purchases at a time when miners such as MARA are selling coins.

Fund demand stayed weak. Spot bitcoin ETFs lost $299.8 million on Wednesday, their fifth straight day of net outflows, bringing the five-day total to about $1.44 billion. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $269.7 million of Wednesday’s redemptions, its ninth straight session of outflows.

This morning’s labor data did not ease the rate outlook. Initial jobless claims rose to 200,000 last week, above the 195,000 economists had expected, the Labor Department said. Traders still see a December Fed rate hike as a certainty, with about a 10% chance of a half-point move, CME FedWatch shows. Higher rates make an asset that pays no interest harder to hold, and that has kept a lid on the bitcoin price all week.

The next test comes quickly. Cisco and Applied Materials report results after Thursday’s close, and Friday’s Producer Price Index will give investors another read on inflation after this week’s consumer price data came in hotter than expected.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $71,800.