Bitcoin sinks to about $73,800, its lowest since August, as more than $1 billion in leveraged bets are wiped out with ether taking the biggest share

Bitcoin slid to about $73,761 late Sunday, its lowest level since August, and then bounced back above $75,000, CoinDesk reported. Ether dropped below $2,100 before recovering to about $2,144. The swings forced the closing of more than $1 billion of leveraged positions over 24 hours, most of it in about six hours, according to CoinGlass data cited by CoinDesk. Ether liquidations, at $448 million, were about 1.6 times bitcoin's $272 million.

CoinDesk linked the moves to two weekend developments: an independent investigation opened by Nvidia's board into reports about chief executive Jensen Huang, and stalled U.S. talks with Iran. A tokenized version of Nvidia stock fell about 3.6% to $180.42 over 24 hours, below the $186.64 at which Nvidia shares closed on Friday.

The week ended at $74,968, according to TechFlow, below the week's opening price of $78,232 on Coinbase, making it a losing week. That close sat about $520 under the 50-week moving average, which Galaxy's Alex Thorn noted was the first weekly close below it in seven weeks. PANews reported that Thorn said his bullish view holds only if bitcoin reclaims the average within a month.

CoinDesk said the next test is how stock markets open on Monday.