By Francisco Rodrigues (All times Eastern Time unless otherwise noted)
bitcoin fell below $105,000, erasing all of its gains from earlier in the week, as growing concerns about credit market stress and a wave of forced liquidations hit crypto markets.
According to data from CoinGlass, over $1.2 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours as the broader crypto market fell 8.89% based on the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index.
The timing coincides with a broader wave of credit-related anxiety in traditional markets. The recent bankruptcies of First Brands and Tricolor have raised new questions about the health of corporate debt markets and depressed risk asset prices across the board.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that these developments may be early signs of a deeper credit glut, telling investors: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be warned about this one.”
That uncertainty spilled over into crypto markets as leveraged traders rushed to cover positions. Nearly 79% of liquidated trades were long positions, reflecting misplaced optimism about a rebound.
Bitcoin is holding up better than altcoins, many of which posted double-digit losses. According to Thomas Chen, CEO of Function and former TradFi executive, this is not surprising.
“If we are back in a high leverage situation with altcoins, and Bitcoin drops 10%, altcoins can easily drop 40% to 50% if interest remains weak and game over,” Chen told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. “It is the bucket of “altcoins” that gets dumped first under conditions of low market confidence. In fact, we have seen this happen many times.
The macroeconomic context does not help. Fears of a prolonged U.S.-China trade dispute, the fragility of regional banks and weakening confidence in long-term sovereign bonds are rattling markets, even now that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut is a near certainty.
That fear has pushed gold toward $4,400 and 10-year Treasury yields below 4%. Gold-backed tokens like XAUT and PAXG have benefited from the precious metal’s rise and continue to outperform the broader market.
“It’s worth mentioning that markets often overreact and then correct themselves,” Chen added.
What to watch
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- October 17 – SynFutures (F), a perpetual swap DEX powered by Base, hosts an AMA event on X.
- Macro
- October 17: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with President Donald Trump at the White House.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
symbolic events
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- Unlock
- October 18: to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $40 million.
- Token releases
- October 17: Aster Airdrop token claim period ends.
- October 17: U2U (U2U) will appear on Kraken.
Conferences
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
symbolic talk
By Oliver Knight
- The entire cryptocurrency market is reeling on Friday after continuing lower with several assets hitting multi-month lows.
- Ether is trading at $3,730 after falling more than 7% in the last 24 hours, while BNB, LINK, and SUI are down more than 10%.
- The move was prompted by the liquidation of another $1.2 billion in derivatives positions, $840 million on the long side, adding to last weekend’s woes, when $19 billion was liquidated.
- Stocks are also showing weakness: the S&P500 lost 3.3% of its value last week, a sell-off that is being reflected in the more illiquid and speculative cryptocurrency market.
- Much of the altcoin market depends on the bitcoin address; If it can hold above the $100,000 psychological support level and perhaps more importantly the $98,000 level, it could provide the impetus for altcoins to rally.
- If those levels are breached, viewers will wonder if the cryptocurrency market is falling back into a feared bear market, a cycle that many analysts suggested would not occur this time due to institutional flows into cryptocurrency ETFs and the purchasing power of digital asset treasury (DAT) companies.
Derivatives positioning
- The BTC futures market is showing stability, with open interest holding steady at approximately $25.7 billion and the 3-month annualized basis remaining firm in the 5-6% range. In a significant change from previous days, funding rates are now holding steady across all major venues.
- The BTC options market is showing extreme and contradictory sentiment. The 24-hour sell/buy volume shows a slight bearish bias with a 45-55 split favoring puts. However, this is dwarfed by the 1-week Delta 25 skyrocketing by about 21%. This exceptionally high positive bias indicates aggressive positioning and a huge premium being paid for short-term call options, indicating strong conviction of a near-term rally despite active demand for downside protection.
- Coinglass data shows $1.2 billion in 24-hour liquidations, with a 78-22 split between long and short positions. ETH ($414 million), BTC ($268 million), and Others ($109 million) were the leaders in terms of notional settlements. The Binance settlement heatmap indicates $103,800 as the central settlement level to monitor, in case of a price drop.
Market movements
- BTC is down 3.14% since 4 pm ET on Thursday to $104,809.77 (24 hours: -6.03%)
- ETH is down 3.48% to $3,730.11 (24 hours: -7.91%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 4.23% to 3,414.49 (24 hours: -8.22%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 basis points to 2.85%
- BTC funding rate is 0.0018% (1.9327% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is down 0.12% at 98.22
- Gold futures rise 1.02% to $4,348.50
- Silver futures down 1.01% to $52.76
- The Nikkei 225 closed down 1.44% at 47,582.15
- Hang Seng closed down 2.48% at 25,247.10
- The FTSE is down 1.39% to 9,304.95
- The Euro Stoxx 50 falls 1.32% to 5,577.36
- DJIA closed Thursday down 0.65% at 45,952.24
- The S&P 500 closed down 0.63% at 6,629.07
- Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.47% at 22,562.54
- S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.58% at 30,458.80
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.37% at 2,868.97
- The 10-year US Treasury rate fell 1.9 basis points to 3.957%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures down 0.99% to 6,602.50
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures down 1.21% to 24,532.00
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 0.68% to 45,847.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- BTC dominance: 59.83% (0.49%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03544 (-1.58%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1111 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $45.31
- Total fees: 3.16 BTC / $347,963
- CME Futures Open Interest: 145,205 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 24.7 oz
- BTC market capitalization against gold: 6.97%
Technical analysis
- BTC managed to close above the 200-day EMA yesterday, but has since fallen back below $105,000 this morning. For bulls, the key objective now is a decisive move back above $107,400, a level that would confirm a weekly swing failure pattern and potentially reignite momentum for a reversal.
- If it fails to close above that threshold, the price action could gravitate towards the 50-week EMA at $99,800, a critical support that has underpinned the market’s uptrend since October 2023, marking the beginning of this cycle’s rally.
Crypto Stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $330.25 (-1.8%), -3.68% at $318.11
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $128.46 (-4.48%), -4.05% at $123.13
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.91 (-4.79%), -6.74% at $37.22
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $57.55 (-1.88%), -3.53% at $55.55
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $20.26 (-11.27%), -5.5% at $19.15
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $19.55 (-11.66%), -6.96% at $18.19
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.67 (-1.35%), -6.25% at $18.44
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $19.99 (-13.84%), -9.25% at $18.14
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): Closed at $59.33 (-9.97%), -7.97% at $54.60
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.18 (-8.34%)
Crypto treasury companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $283.84 (-4.35%), -3.94% at $272.75
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $24.67 (-3.14%), -6.08% at $23.17
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $14.57 (-3.83%), -6.04% at $13.69
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $5.61 (-6.81%), -9.09% at $5.10
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.85 (-13.15%), -5.41% in $
ETF Flows
BTC Spot ETF
- Daily net flow: -$530.9 million
- Accumulated net flows: $61.87 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35 million
ETH Spot ETF
- Daily net flow: -$56.8 million
- Accumulated net flows: 14,840 million dollars
- Total ETH holdings ~6.84 million
Source: Farside Investors
while you were sleeping
