Bitcoin retreats below $80,000, liquidating $300 million in futures bets
Key takeaways
- Crypto traders unwound leverage aggressively, with futures open interest falling 1.5%, nearly $300 million in liquidations, and options flow shifting toward protective BTC puts.
- Ether (ETH) is trading at $2,280 having lost 0.2% since midnight UTC and around 2% over the past 24 hours, with other altcoins like monero (XMR) and dash (DASH) losing between 4% and 5%.
- Token talk Despite relative weakness across crypto majors and privacy coins, CoinDesk's DeFi Select Index (DFX) surged by more than 3% since midnight UTC, buoyed by an 8.2% gain in the price of ONDO.
Crypto traders unwound leverage aggressively, with futures open interest falling 1.5%, nearly $300 million in liquidations, and options flow shifting toward protective BTC puts. Despite weakness in majors and memecoins, DeFi tokens outperformed as ONDO jumped over 8% following a cross-border U.S. Treasury redemption involving JPMorgan, Mastercard and Ripple.In this articleBTCBTC$79,891.46◢1.18%Bitcoin BTC$79,891.46 tumbled back below $80,000 late Thursday after the U.S. launched fresh airstrikes in Iran, causing brent crude oil to briefly top $100 per barrel before giving back a portion of gains during Asia and European hours.
The crypto market was already slightly jittery after Strategy chairman Michael Saylor said that the company would consider selling bitcoin to cover dividend payments from its STRC, a u-turn from its previous "never sell" strategy.
Ether (ETH) is trading at $2,280 having lost 0.2% since midnight UTC and around 2% over the past 24 hours, with other altcoins like monero (XMR) and dash (DASH) losing between 4% and 5%.