Bitcoin’s 50-week moving average is a historical price reference, not a guaranteed floor. In The Block’s November 9, 2026 report, that reference stood at $75,488. Galaxy’s head of firmwide research, Alex Thorn, said bitcoin finished the week roughly 0.7% below it, reopening a question about whether earlier bear-market recoveries offer a useful comparison.
The report was published on November 9, 2026, at 21:03:19 UTC+8. The prices, flows and market assessments below reflect that reporting period, not current conditions.
A break after seven weeks above the line
Bitcoin closed below its 50-week moving average on Sunday for the first time in eight weeks. It had reclaimed the level on September 20 and then stayed above it for seven consecutive weeks.
By Monday morning, bitcoin briefly traded below $74,000. The weekly close relative to the moving average and the subsequent price decline are separate observations: the former describes bitcoin’s position against a historical reference, while the latter accompanied a substantial wave of leveraged-position liquidations.
The historical comparison—and its limits
Thorn examined the 2011–2012 and 2019–2020 bear-market recoveries, during which bitcoin also dropped below its 50-week moving average after initially reclaiming it.
- 2011–2012: Bitcoin spent another 20 weeks below the average and fell as much as 35% beneath it.
- 2019–2020: Bitcoin fell back below the average five times, including an eight-week stretch during the Covid crash.
In both cases, Thorn said, the earlier bear-market low held on a weekly closing basis. That qualification matters: his observation concerned weekly closes, not a claim that prices never moved below those lows within a week.
The comparison does not establish a reliable forecast. Thorn acknowledged that his sample covered just five reclaims, and that a bottom can only be identified in hindsight. Historical examples show that losing the moving average can coexist with an eventual recovery; they do not establish that the same outcome will follow this break.
The report identified bitcoin’s previous low for the cycle as $59,517 on June 28. Galaxy had argued in October that the bear market was over. At that time, Thorn wrote that the firm believed the bottom was in, selling pressure had diminished, the debasement case had strengthened and the crowd had left. Those were Galaxy’s assessments, not conclusions established by the moving average alone.
On November 9, Thorn said his bullish technical case from October would remain valid if bitcoin regained the 50-week average within a month. That was a conditional assessment, not a guaranteed recovery timetable.
Liquidations and ETF outflows added context
According to CoinGlass data cited by The Block, crypto liquidations exceeded $1.15 billion over 24 hours, including $1.04 billion in longs and $117 million in shorts.
Ether traders accounted for more than $500 million in liquidations, compared with roughly $309 million for bitcoin. CoinGlass recorded 167,764 traders liquidated during the period, with the largest individual order a $48.2 million ETH-USDT long on Binance.
The figures carry a reporting limitation: The Block noted that exchanges including Binance and OKX were still underreporting liquidations in incomplete bursts, meaning actual totals were likely higher.
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs also recorded $1.28 billion in net outflows during the preceding week, the largest weekly outflow since late June, according to The Block’s Saturday reporting. The 12 funds had net outflows on four of the five trading days, leaving their combined 2026 flows negative at $914.1 million in net outflows. BlackRock’s IBIT alone recorded $403 million in outflows on Friday.
These figures provide market context, but they do not turn the moving-average break or the historical comparisons into a predictive model. The central distinction remains between an observed price relationship, a small set of historical precedents and Galaxy’s conditional interpretation of what might follow.