Bitcoin briefly dropped below $80,000 on Saturday, triggering a wave of forced liquidations across crypto derivatives markets. According to CoinGlass data, of the $436.44 million in positions liquidated in the four hours through 1 p.m. ET, $404.15 million were leveraged longs.
The heaviest selling pressure came in two bursts. Longs lost $208.21 million in the 15 minutes from 10:15 a.m. ET as BTC fell from roughly $80,640 to $80,100, followed by another $131.17 million in the 15 minutes from 11:15 a.m. ET. Long liquidations between 8 a.m. and noon ET reached $401.91 million, the highest for any four-hour window since the night of Oct. 14, when $505.57 million in longs were wiped out.
Bitcoin touched about $79,280 around 11:20 a.m. ET before recovering to $80,138 by 1 p.m. The rebound shifted pressure onto short sellers, with shorts accounting for $8.35 million of the $10.62 million liquidated in the hour to 1:09 p.m. ET. Over 24 hours, bitcoin was down 1.9%, while ether traded 3.8% lower at $2,314.
Total liquidations over the past 24 hours reached $815.26 million, up 218% from the previous day, with 201,012 traders affected. Crypto futures open interest fell 2.2% to $140.10 billion. Ether and Hyperliquid ether positions accounted for $136.72 million of the four-hour total, close to bitcoin’s $158.45 million, even though ether has only about 18% of bitcoin’s market capitalization. Longs represented 94.2% of bitcoin liquidations and 92.7% of ether liquidations.
The largest single liquidation order of the previous 24 hours was an $11.85 million ETH-USDT long on Binance, closed at $2,307.65. Binance saw $226.07 million in four-hour liquidations, 96% of them longs, while Hyperliquid recorded $70.47 million in liquidations, 99.8% of them longs.
Spot bitcoin ETFs also faced pressure. U.S. funds recorded $137.94 million in net outflows on Friday, following $635.49 million in outflows on Thursday. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $110.34 million of Friday’s outflows, or 80%, and Fidelity’s FBTC for $31.78 million, partly offset by $4.19 million in inflows to Morgan Stanley’s MSBT. The funds took in $1.078 billion from Monday through Wednesday, leaving $304.73 million in net inflows for the week and total net assets of about $104.43 billion.
Spot ether ETFs posted $4.35 million in net inflows on Friday, but still ended the week with $220.60 million in net outflows. Ether funds have now recorded net outflows on 14 of 17 trading days in October, totaling $1.175 billion, according to SoSoValue data.
Adding to the cautious tone, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said early Saturday that he had closed the directional book at his family office Maelstrom. “I dumped it all,” Hayes wrote on X, adding that he took profits on ETH, ENA, UNI “and other shitcoins.” He added: “I think we gotta go down to go up. It looks a bit dicey out there in macro and geopolitical land,” and said he would wait for an all-clear signal. The State Department is reducing staff at U.S. embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the Associated Press reported, citing an internal memo about increased Iranian efforts to target U.S. personnel.
