GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that’s like a pit crew for your portfolio. Quick, sharp and always ready.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ BTC is back to its 2021 peak.
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Bitwise: The NYSE Just Picked Avalanche. Is Ethereum in Trouble?
- 🍪 Tim Warren thinks the 2027 setup starts with oil, not a Bitcoin price target.
Despite the market, we all know another big trade is coming. It could be crypto, stocks, or even commodities. Whatever it is, Nika lets you trade them all in one app, without switching platforms. Find your next big trade with Nika.
Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Powered by CoinGecko.
BTC IS BACK TO ITS 2021 PEAK 🔁
Five years ago this week, Bitcoin hit ~$69K for the first time.
Today, it's trading at… ~$69K.
BTC slipped under its November 2021 peak (~$69,045) late last night, and it's been hovering right around that level all morning.
Anyone who bought the very top of the last cycle is roughly back to break-even, five years later.
It also leaves BTC ~45% below its all-time high of ~$126K from October 2025.
Last Saturday, John (our crypto analyst) called $71-72K strong support and said he expected "a LOT of support" to show up there.
By Thursday, he described the buying as "more of a shrug than a stampede."
BTC slid through $71K last night, dropped under the 2021 peak around 10:50pm ET, and briefly hit ~$67.9K at 1am.
Then leverage did the rest:
- $1.64B in liquidations over 24 hours.
- 88.7% of that came from longs (traders betting on prices going up).
- The biggest single hit was a $31.1M BTC long on Hyperliquid, wiped out at $72,250.
(With each forced sale pushing the price lower and triggering the next one.)
Here's the full five-year round trip:
Source: Yahoo Finance, CoinGecko
This morning's PPI report didn't change much:
PPI (the producer price index, which tracks wholesale inflation) rose 0.3% in October, a touch below the 0.4% economists expected.
Core PPI (the same measure minus food and energy) came in right on forecast.
BTC bounced ~$740, then slid straight back under $69K.
Traders now see a 100% chance the Fed raises interest rates on Dec 9 (according to CME FedWatch, a tool that turns futures prices into rate odds).
Which leaves Bitcoin sitting right on top of the level John has called "the floor all year"…
THE NEXT BIG TRADE IS COMING
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BTC IS BACK TO ITS 2021 PEAK (P2) 🔁
The floor John is referring to is the 200-week moving average.
It's Bitcoin's average weekly closing price over roughly four years, and it sits at ~$68K right now.
It smooths out the daily noise, so big, patient buyers tend to step in around it.
BTC hugged it for ~10 weeks this summer, then ran from ~$62.8K in mid-August to ~$86.5K by early October.
John's call in his PRO update last night: "I think the 200-week gets tested… and I don't think we go back to the July low" (just under $58K).
He's nudged the odds of a trip back there up from ~5% to 10-15%.
For that to happen, he says BTC would have to drop "like a stone straight through" $68K with no support at all.
Tim Warren is a little less sure:
On Wednesday, Tim (a crypto technical analyst and host of the Tim Warren Show) said he was 90% sure the bottom was in.
He also said he'd cut that to ~70% if BTC lost $71K, and to ~55% if we got below $68,500.
Both have now happened (the second briefly, overnight), putting him close to a coin flip.
The bigger problem is who's missing:
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have now had six straight days of outflows, totaling ~$1.72B.
BlackRock's IBIT, the biggest of the bunch, has seen withdrawals 10 days in a row.
These funds took in ~$1.2B the day BTC hit its record high, but now they're heading for the exit:
Here’s what to watch from here:
- $68K through the weekend: If the 200-week holds, John expects it to act as a floor again.
- ~$73.1K: The 200-day moving average (BTC's average over the last ~200 days), and the first level BTC needs to win back.
- $75.5K: The bottom of the range BTC held from late August until this week. Reclaim that, and the bulls are back in business.
Until then, John says he doesn't "trust any bounce."
The big question for the weekend:
Do buyers finally show up at $68K, or wait for lower prices?
Btw - John posts real-time updates as BTC tests these levels. Try Milk Road PRO for $1 for 7 days to get his next call first.
WALL STREET BUILDS WHILE BITCOIN BLEEDS
Bitcoin just fell below $73K and ETFs posted their worst week since June. Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange is building its 24/7 stock market on Avalanche.
The Bitwise Boyz are back to make sense of it all: Matt Hougan (Bitwise’s Chief Investment Officer) and Ryan Rasmussen (Head of Research) joined John on today’s episode of The Milk Road Show.
Here's what we covered:
- Who's still selling, and the Bitcoin level where a pullback turns into something broken.
- Why the age of the new Congress matters more for crypto than its party.
- Whether Vitalik's store-of-value pitch for ETH can win institutions back.
👉 Watch the full episode now.
YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
Securitize is the company quietly powering BlackRock, Apollo and KKR's move onchain. Here's how we broke it down in our article.*
The Winklevai peace out of Europe: Gemini has reportedly sold its UK and European operations to stablecoin payments firm KAST for under $10M.
Felix Jauvin: Crypto fundamentals are improving. A lot of venture-backed tokens with bad structures have fully vested and cleaned up balance sheets.
Tim Warren thinks the 2027 setup starts with oil, not a Bitcoin price target.
*this is sponsored content.
