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Bitcoin slips below $80,000 as U.S. Middle East evacuations spark $404 million in long liquidations
Summary
Bitcoin fell below $80,000 on Saturday, Oct. 24, hitting its weakest level in more than a month, CoinDesk and The Block reported; The Block said it bottomed near $79,280 around 11:20 a.m. ET before recovering to about $80,138 by 1 p.m.
CoinDesk tied the slide to a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. is quickly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases across the Middle East on intelligence that Iran is preparing attacks on Americans, while The Block cited an AP report that the State Department is cutting staff at embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the UAE.
Leveraged bullish bets took most of the losses: $404.15 million of the $436.44 million liquidated in the four hours to 1 p.m. ET were longs, the most long liquidations for a four-hour stretch since Oct. 14, per CoinGlass data cited by The Block.
CoinDesk said bitcoin was down 2.2% over 24 hours at about $79,700, with ether, XRP and solana down 3% to 4%; The Block put bitcoin down 1.9% and ether down 3.8% at $2,314.
Updates
- Update, : Update: Bitcoin fell back under $80,000 on Oct. 26, dropping nearly 2% to about $79,800 as traders cut risk before the Federal Reserve's Wednesday meeting, with ether and XRP leading losses among the majors and CoinDesk saying bitcoin must reclaim $82,500 to restore bulls' confidence. Decrypt pointed to an AI stock sell-off and ETF outflows, with HashKey's Tim Sun flagging $75,000 as the next key support.
- Update, : Update: On Monday, Oct. 26, Bitcoin Magazine reported bitcoin hovering near $80,000 as traders wait on this week's Fed decision, citing geopolitical tensions and Anthropic's possible IPO as added uncertainty.
- Update, : Update: CoinDesk reported bitcoin little changed near $80,400 since midnight UTC on Oct. 26, with the Fed due to decide on Wednesday.
- Update, : Update (Oct. 27): CoinDesk reported bitcoin fell 0.4% to around $79,700 since midnight UTC while Asian tech stocks rallied; its DeFi index dropped 1.8% as the Fed began a two-day meeting.
Key facts
- Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton wrote in a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that "Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel," CoinDesk reported, citing the WSJ.
- President Trump said at a Florida rally on Friday, "We may do another little 'Epic Fury,'" threatening a re-escalation against Iran after the midterms, CoinDesk reported.
- Liquidations over 24 hours totaled $815.26 million, up 218% from the prior day, hitting 201,012 traders, while crypto futures open interest fell 2.2% to $140.10 billion, The Block reported citing CoinGlass.
- Ether liquidations of $136.72 million in the four-hour window came close to bitcoin's $158.45 million even though ether's market cap is about 18% of bitcoin's, The Block said.
- U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs had $137.94 million in net outflows Friday after $635.49 million Thursday, but still ended the week with $304.73 million in net inflows, per SoSoValue data cited by The Block.
- BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes wrote on X early Saturday that he had closed his family office's directional book, saying "I dumped it all" and "I think we gotta go down to go up," The Block reported.
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