Bitcoin traded at about $80,460 early Sunday, roughly flat over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data at 8:08 a.m. ET. That followed a Saturday-morning slide below $80,000, to its weakest level in more than a month, according to CoinDesk. The Block’s price data put Saturday’s low at about $79,280 around 11:20 a.m. ET before a rebound to roughly $80,140 by 1 p.m.
Ether was about 1% lower over 24 hours early Sunday at roughly $2,336, and solana was little changed near $101, while XRP was up about 1.5% at $1.30, CoinGecko data showed. On Saturday morning, all three had been down between 3% and 4% over 24 hours, CoinDesk reported.
Most of the damage landed on traders betting on higher prices. In the four hours to 1 p.m. ET Saturday, $436.4 million of crypto futures positions were liquidated, and $404.2 million of that came from longs, according to CoinGlass data cited by The Block. Two 15-minute bursts, starting at 10:15 a.m. and 11:15 a.m., accounted for about $339 million of long liquidations. Ether positions made up $136.7 million of the four-hour total, close to bitcoin’s $158.5 million. The pace has since slowed. CoinGlass’s 24-hour count for the 20 most-liquidated coins stood at $452.9 million as of about 3 a.m. ET Sunday, with $391.1 million from longs, TokenPost reported.
Fund flows had already turned. U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded net outflows of $635.6 million on Thursday and $137.9 million on Friday, according to Farside Investors, about $773 million over the two days. SoSoValue data reported by The Block show nearly identical figures. Farside’s Friday total is still provisional, with one fund yet to report. Even after the two down days, the funds were still net positive for the week, by about $305 million on SoSoValue’s count.
The selling came as markets digested reports about U.S. staffing in the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the U.S. is evacuating personnel from embassies and bases in the region, CoinDesk said. The State Department’s own Saudi Arabia travel advisory, dated Oct. 23, says it ordered non-emergency government employees and their families to leave that country. The Associated Press reported that the department is also reducing staff at embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which remain open. Hardwire Crypto has not established a direct link between those reports and the price move.
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes posted “I dumped it all” on X at about 2:18 a.m. ET Saturday, The Block reported.
Sources: CoinGecko, CoinDesk, The Block, TokenPost, Farside Investors, U.S. Department of State, Associated Press