Bitcoin Crash: Falling Knife or Buy the Dip?

Friday, November 13, 2026, 12:08 p.m. ET: Bitcoin trades at $68,760, 44.9 percent below its highest daily close on October 6, 2025. Is this a buying opportunity or a falling knife you should not try to catch? CoinMarketCap's daily prices since April 2013 give an uncomfortable answer and an encouraging one. The uncomfortable one: in six of seven earlier cases where Bitcoin first closed 45 percent below its record in a cycle, the price was lower one year later. The encouraging one: a $100 weekly savings plan started at the record high is down only 11.6 percent today, while a lump sum invested on the record day is down 44.9 percent.

Why Bitcoin is falling today and what the weekend could bring is covered in our report Bitcoin on Friday the 13th: weekend panic builds as traders eye $60,000. This piece tackles the question many investors are asking tonight: buy Bitcoin now or wait?

Catching a falling knife: what the old market rule means for Bitcoin

"Never catch a falling knife" is an old market rule. If you buy into a sharply falling price, it may keep dropping before a bottom forms. For Bitcoin, that rule has been especially costly. In the three major bear markets since 2013, the price fell by more than three quarters each time, and it took 10 to 13 months from the first 45 percent drawdown to the bottom.