Bitcoin Plunges to $64K as U.S. Tech Rout Hits Crypto, Leads to $250M Long Bets Being Liquidated

Bitcoin fell sharply by over 3 percent at the start of Asian trading hours amid a general decline in the stock market.

More than $250 million worth of bullish bets were wiped out in the biggest liquidation since early July.

Bitcoin {{BTC}} fell over 3% in early Asian trading hours, amid a general stock market crash and weakening confidence in risky assets like cryptocurrencies.

BTC fell from $65,500 to almost $64,000 in a matter of minutes at the start of Tokyo trading. The sudden drop led to the liquidation of more than $250 million worth of bullish bets, dealing it its worst blow since early July.

Liquidations occur when an exchange forcibly closes an investor’s leveraged position due to a partial or full loss of the investor’s initial margin. This type of data is useful to investors because it serves as a signal that leverage has effectively been eliminated from popular futures products and acts as a short-term indicator of a decline in price volatility.

The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index that tracks the largest tokens by market capitalization and excludes stablecoins, fell 3.3%.

Ether {{ETH}} longs lost the most at $100 million, driven by a 7.5% drop in the token driven by outflows from the newly launched ETH ETF.

Binance recorded the highest liquidations among exchanges at $118 million, 88% of which were long trades. OKX and Huobi, popular with Asian-based traders, recorded that 94% of long trades opened on their exchanges were liquidated.

The decline comes after U.S. technology stocks took a beating on Wednesday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index shedding 660 points in its biggest drop since 2022.

Mixed quarterly earnings from Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) and Tesla (TSLA) sent shares of the companies down as much as 12% on Wednesday; collectively, the so-called “Magnificent 7” tech stocks lost more than $750 billion in market value on Wednesday, a record loss for the group.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell more than 3 percent early Thursday on concerns the Bank of Japan may raise interest rates, with losses spilling over into Asian markets.