From CoinDesk · By Oliver Knight, Omkar Godbole
Bitcoin fell to just above $80,000 at around 02:30 UTC, close to the Oct. 8 low, before recovering to about $81,200, down around 0.5% since midnight UTC.
South Korea’s Kospi plunged 8% and triggered circuit breakers, while Nasdaq 100 index futures slid about 1% and the odds of an October Fed rate hike eased to roughly 26% from a spike near 47%.
The CoinDesk 80 slid 2.2% against 0.7% for the CoinDesk 5, and all but six CD100 members were lower.
Bitcoin BTC$80,955.28 is trading at $81,200, down around 0.5% since midnight UTC after trimming a 1% loss from earlier in the session, with buyers stepping in just above $80,000 at around 02:30 UTC, close to the Oct. 8 low of about $80,300.
Asian equities set the tone, with South Korea’s Kospi plunging 8% and triggering circuit breakers while Nasdaq 100 index futures slid about 1%, extending Wednesday’s 1.9% drop in the Nasdaq Composite.
Altcoins took the heavier losses, with ether ETH$2,366.47 down 2.0% near $2,370. The CoinDesk 80 (CD80) slid by 2.2% while the bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 5 (CD5) lost around 0.7%.
The bigger moves were apparent across lower market cap tokens, with pump.fun PUMP$0.004259 falling by 9.4% as the CoinDesk Memecoin Index lost 4.0%, leaving all but six CD100 members lower.
The odds of an October Federal Reserve interest-rate increase jumped to nearly 47% on CME’s FedWatch after Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected inflation report, from about 22% beforehand. It’s now back to roughly 26%, which leaves Treasury yields and hike pricing as the next signals heading into the U.S. open.
Derivatives positioning
Liquidations jumped to nearly $1 billion after a hot inflation print: Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures bets were liquidated over 24 hours as the market wilted after Wednesday's hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation report, up from about $136 million a day earlier. The spike shows how crowded positioning was heading into the data.
Ether took a heavier hit than bitcoin: ETH saw more liquidations than bitcoin. Longs worth $200 million were liquidated in ether, significantly more than the $115 million in bitcoin. The difference points to heavier long leverage in ether.
Silver outranked a top privacy coin on liquidations: XAG (silver) perpetual futures have seen more liquidations than zcash (ZEC), one of the top privacy coins in a sign of the growing popularity of TradFi assets on crypto platforms.
Trading surged while open interest held steady: 24-hour crypto futures volume is $252 billion, up 61% over the period, while open interest (OI) is largely unchanged at $139.6 billion. That means the activity was mostly existing positions being closed or churned, not a big new leverage build. The taker long/short volume ratio is again skewed bearish, with shorts accounting for 51.67% of the flow, little changed from 52% a day earlier.