By Francisco Rodrigues (all times ET unless otherwise noted)
Bitcoin fell below $105,000, wiping out all of its gains in the early week as growing concerns over credit market stress and a wave of forced liquidations hit crypto markets.
Over $1.2 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data, 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 driven down risk asset prices across the board.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that these events could be early signs of deeper credit gluts, telling investors: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be warned about this one.”
This uncertainty spilled over into the crypto markets as leveraged traders attempted to cover positions. Almost 79% of liquidated trades were longs, reflecting misplaced optimism about a recovery.
Bitcoin is holding up better than altcoins, many of which had double-digit losses. That’s not surprising, according to Thomas Chen, CEO of Function and former TradFi director.
“If we are again in a highly leveraged situation with altcoins and Bitcoin drops 10%, alts could easily drop 40-50% if interest remains weak and it’s over,” Chen told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. “It’s the ‘altcoin’ bucket that gets dumped first in low market confidence conditions. We’ve actually seen this happen many times.”
The macro background doesn’t help. Fears of a protracted US-China trade war, fragility in regional banks and weakening confidence in long-term government bonds are rattling markets, even as Fed rate cuts are now a near certainty.
That fear has pushed gold toward $4,400 and 10-year Treasury yields below 4%. Gold-backed tokens such as 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 see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- October 17: SynFutures (F), a perpetual exchange 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 (Estimated based on FactSet data)
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- Unlocks
- October 18: to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply, worth $40 million.
- The token is launched
- October 17: Aster Airdrop token claim period ends.
- October 17: U2U (U2U) to be listed on Kraken.
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
- The entire crypto market is reeling on Friday after continued downward trend with several assets hitting multi-month lows.
- Ether is trading at $3,730 after falling more than 7% in the past 24 hours, while the likes of BNB, LINK and SUI are all down more than 10%.
- The move was spurred by another $1.2 billion in derivatives positions being liquidated, $840 million on the long side, adding to problems from last weekend when $19 billion was liquidated.
- Equities are also showing weakness, with the S&P500 losing 3.3% of its value in the past week, a sell-off that is reflected in the more illiquid and speculative crypto market.
- Much of the altcoin market depends on the direction of bitcoin; if it can hold above the psychological level of support at $100,000 and perhaps more importantly the level at $98,000, it could provide the impetus for altcoins to recover.
- If these levels are breached, onlookers will question whether the crypto market is sliding back into a dreaded bear market, a cycle that many analysts suggested would not occur this time due to institutional flows into crypto ETFs and buying power from digital asset treasury companies (DATs).
Derivative positioning
- The BTC futures market is showing stability, with open interest holding steady at approximately $25.7 billion and the 3-month annual basis remaining firmly in the 5-6% range. In a significant shift from previous days, finance rates are now flat across all major venues.
- The BTC options market is exhibiting extreme, conflicting sentiment. 24-hour Put/Call Volume shows a slight bearish bias with a 45-55 split favoring puts. However, this is overshadowed by the sky-high 1-week 25 Delta Skew of approximately 21%. This unusually high positive bias indicates aggressive positioning and a massive premium paid for short-term call options, signaling strong conviction for a short-term rally despite the active demand for downside protection.
- Coinglass data shows $1.2 billion in 24-hour liquidations, with a 78-22 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($414 million), BTC ($268 million) and Others ($109 million) led the way in fictitious liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $103,800 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price drop.
Market movements
- BTC is down 3.14% as of 16 ET Thursday at $104,809.77 (24 hours: -6.03%)
- ETH is down 3.48% to $3,730.11 (24h: -7.91%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 4.23% to 3,414.49 (24 hours: -8.22%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps to 2.85%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0018% (1.9327% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is down 0.12% to 98.22
- Gold futures are up 1.02% at $4,348.50
- Silver futures are down 1.01% at $52.76
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 1.44% at 47,582.15
- The Hang Seng closed down 2.48% to 25,247.10
- The FTSE is down 1.39% to 9,304.95
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.32% to 5,577.36
- The DJIA closed down 0.65% at 45,952.24 on Thursday
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.63% at 6,629.07
- The Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.47% at 22,562.54
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.58% at 30,458.80
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.37% at 2,868.97
- US 10-year Treasury is down 1.9 bps at 3.957%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.99% at 6,602.50
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.21% at 24,532.00
- The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index is down 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): 1,111 EH/s
- Hash price (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 vs Gold Market Cap: 6.97%
Technical Analysis
- BTC managed to close above the 200-day EMA yesterday, but has since fallen back below $105K this morning. For the bulls, the main target is now a decisive step back above $107.4K – a level that would confirm a weekly swing failure pattern and potentially restore momentum for a reversal.
- Failure to close above this threshold could see price action pull back towards the 50-week EMA at $99.8K – a critical support that has supported the market’s uptrend since October 2023, marking the beginning of this cycle rally.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed 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% at $
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flow: -$530.9 million
- Cumulative net flows: $61.87 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.35M
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: -$56.8 million
- Cumulative net flows: $14.84 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 6.84 million
Source: Farside Investors
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