Bitcoin dropped from $85,341 to $83,790 in about 20 minutes early Wednesday, wiping out more than $400 million in leveraged long positions. The flush came three days before the anniversary of crypto's worst liquidation day, and a mix of rising oil prices, higher Treasury yields and a firmer dollar added pressure on top of the derivatives unwind.
A 20-minute flush erases $400 million in longs
Bitcoin slid from $85,341 to $83,790 between 01:45 and 02:10 UTC on Oct. 7, with almost no bounce in between, before dipping as low as $83,577, a drop of roughly 2.1%. Onchain trackers counted $412.62 million in liquidations within one hour, with short positions making up just $11.79 million of that total.
Over 24 hours, long liquidations reached $479 million and 104,836 traders were liquidated in total. The concentration of leverage on the long side meant falling prices forced exchanges to close positions automatically, which only added more sell orders during the decline.
The selloff spread across the market
Ether fell from about $2,688 to a low of $2,591 before recovering slightly, while XRP slid from $1.49 to $1.43 over the same stretch. A Coinglass board posted shortly after the move showed nearly every top-20 asset in the red, with UNI down 8.35% and Dogecoin down 4.62%.
Individual losses were also steep. Lookonchain spotted a trader losing an entire 3,728 ETH long, worth $9.85 million, in about three minutes as ether broke below $2,600.
Oil, yields and the dollar piled on
The drop lined up with a broader shift away from riskier assets. Brent crude climbed back above $101 a barrel as security concerns around Middle East oil shipments intensified. At the same time, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.307%.
At the same time, the dollar index gained 0.16% to 102.07 amid rising safe-haven demand. Traders are now watching the Federal Reserve's September meeting minutes, due later Wednesday, for clues on whether another rate increase is likely this year.
The anniversary everyone is watching
The flush landed three days before Oct. 10, the date of crypto's worst liquidation event, which wiped out more than $19 billion across over 1.6 million traders last year. Wednesday's $479 million in long liquidations equaled just 2.5% of that total, and the 104,836 traders affected were roughly 6.5% of the prior count, easing some of the comparisons circulating on social media.
Bitcoin is now trading near $84,200, about $2,500 below its 24-hour high. A one-week heatmap showed heavy leverage clustered at $87,400 above and $82,600 below Wednesday's range, and the day's low stopped roughly $1,000 short of that lower pool.
Sources: Bitcoin News, crypto.news
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