Bitcoin News Today: Bitcoin's $87K Slide: Quantum Fears and a $1.3B Whale Exit Collide

Bitcoin's price slide below $87,000 on Nov. 20, 2025, underscored a market grappling with quantum computing fears and a $1.3 billion whale exit, sparking debates over the cryptocurrency's long-term security. The sell-off, which erased $220 million in long positions, followed concerns raised by billionaire Ray Dalio about Bitcoin's vulnerability to quantum attacks. While Dalio highlighted theoretical risks, critics like financial analyst Mel Mattison argued that Bitcoin's SHA-256 encryption is more robust than traditional banking systems' RSA standards, suggesting the panic was overblown according to analysis.

The market's turbulence was compounded by the exit of Owen Gunden, an early Bitcoin adopter who sold his 11,000 BTC stake after 14 years. Arkham reported the sale, which injected additional supply into an already oversold market and accelerated the price decline. CoinGlass data revealed over $910 million in liquidations in 24 hours, with longs and shorts each hitting $264 million in a single trading hour, reflecting the sector's fragility.

Meanwhile, Zcash (ZEC) surged as a privacy-focused alternative to Bitcoin, challenging BTC's dominance. Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas warned that Zcash's rise could "split the vote" for crypto's leading asset, likening it to a "third-party candidate" in a pivotal market moment. The Winklevoss twins, however, positioned Zcash as a complementary "encrypted Bitcoin," emphasizing its role in private transactions. Critics dismissed Zcash as a niche asset unlikely to attract core BTC supporters.

Quantum computing advancements, meanwhile, drew attention as firms like WiMi Hologram Cloud and IBM pushed technical boundaries. WiMi introduced a dual-discriminator QGAN architecture, aiming to enhance training efficiency for quantum models by leveraging quantum convolutional neural networks (QCNNs). IBM and Cisco announced a collaboration to build a network of large-scale quantum computers, with a vision of a "quantum computing internet" by the late 2030s.

The crypto space also saw speculative momentum from projects like Bitcoin Munari, which launched a presale at $0.10 per token. The project aims to extend Bitcoin's supply framework with programmability and privacy features, launching on Solana before transitioning to its own Layer-1 chain.

As the market navigates these developments, the interplay between quantum risks, privacy innovations, and institutional strategies will likely shape the next phase of crypto's evolution.