Bitcoin fell below $75,000 and then $74,000 on Sunday evening, November 8, in a sharp late-session flush that wiped out hundreds of millions of dollars in leveraged long positions and dragged Ether below $2,100.
Summary
- Bitcoin slid below $75,000 and then $74,000 on Sunday evening. One reading put it at $73,743, down 2.80% on the day, after it had traded near $75,800 earlier in the session.
- Crypto futures markets recorded $745 million in liquidations in the hour through 5:21 p.m. ET (22:21 UTC). Long positions accounted for $715 million of the total, about 96%, against $29.62 million in shorts.
- More than $700 million in crypto long positions was liquidated within 20 minutes as Bitcoin slid below $74,000, with Solana falling below $86 in the same stretch.
- Ether slipped below $2,100 to $2,096.73, a daily loss of 6.48%. It later traded at $2,132.80, down 4.52% over 24 hours, after touching a low of $2,063.29.
- Bitcoin was trading near $74,400 late on Sunday, below Strategy’s average purchase price of $75,451 a coin. Strategy’s 849,327 BTC were worth about $63.58 billion on Sunday, roughly $500 million below their aggregate purchase cost.
- The Crypto Fear and Greed Index stood at 28, in “Fear” territory. Bitcoin opened the week at $78,232 and is set to close it about 5% lower, a fifth straight weekly loss.
Bitcoin breaks below $74,000
Bitcoin spent most of Sunday trading in a narrow band near $75,800. The break came in the late U.S. afternoon. TokenPost reported Bitcoin at 74,918.85 USDT, down 1.25% on the day, before a later reading showed it at 73,743.33 USDT, down 2.80%. A separate hourly snapshot put Bitcoin down 2.01% in an hour to $74,244 at 4:56 p.m. ET.
Market data tracked by Finnhub put Bitcoin at $74,414.01 late on Sunday, with an intraday low of $73,510 against an open of $75,788.63. On OKX, Bitcoin was quoted at $74,643, down 1.52% over 24 hours after touching $73,500.
The move broke the $75,000 level that had held through the weekend and the $74,780 low set on Friday, which had been Bitcoin’s weakest intraday price since August 21. It also put Bitcoin below its 50-week moving average, near $75,500, a level traders had been watching through the weekend.
A $745 million hour for liquidations
The speed of the drop forced leveraged traders out in large numbers. TokenPost reported $745 million in crypto liquidations in the hour through 5:21 p.m. ET, with $715 million in long positions and $29.62 million in shorts. Across the 24 hours through the same snapshot, about 137,000 traders had positions liquidated.
Ether led the 24-hour asset breakdown with $343 million in liquidations, $114 million more than Bitcoin at $229 million. The largest single liquidation was a $48.16 million position in Binance’s ETH/USDT market.
A separate tally for the hour to 4:56 p.m. ET showed Bitcoin liquidations of $139.51 million in long positions and $530,000 in shorts across Binance, Bybit and OKX. TokenPost also reported that more than $700 million in crypto long positions was liquidated within 20 minutes as Bitcoin fell below $74,000.
Liquidations happen when an exchange automatically closes a leveraged position after the trader’s collateral can no longer cover it. Forced selling from long positions can add downward pressure, which is why a fast drop can feed on itself. The imbalance was near-total: almost every position closed in the Sunday flush belonged to traders betting on rising prices.
Ether and Solana fall with Bitcoin
Ether took the heavier hit of the two largest coins. It slipped below $2,100 to $2,096.73, down 6.48% on the day, according to TokenPost. It later traded at $2,132.80, down 4.52% over 24 hours, after reaching a low of $2,063.29.
Solana fell below $86 during the same stretch, and XRP traded at $1.12, down 3.75% over 24 hours. The declines were broad: almost every major token fell in the hour, with long liquidations recorded across Binance, Bybit and OKX in each of them.
Strategy’s holdings slip below cost
The drop also pushed Bitcoin below the average purchase price of the largest corporate holder. TokenPost reported that Strategy’s 849,327 BTC were worth about $63.58 billion on Sunday, roughly $500 million below their aggregate purchase cost of $64.08 billion, based on the company’s November 1 holdings figure. The average purchase price is $75,451 a coin.
Strategy bought 811 BTC for $65.5 million in the week ended November 1, at an average price of $80,846 a coin. When Bitcoin traded above $80,000 earlier in the week, the same holdings were valued above their aggregate cost.
A fifth straight weekly loss
Bitcoin opened the week at $78,232 and is set to close it about 5% lower, a fifth consecutive weekly loss. It is the latest leg of a slide that began after Bitcoin topped $80,000 in the middle of the week and then fell more than 5% on Thursday as U.S. technology stocks sold off.
The week also brought the largest weekly outflow from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs since June, at $1.28 billion, as reported in CryptoCorax’s earlier coverage. Friday alone saw more than $1 billion in crypto positions liquidated, according to CoinGlass data cited by Decrypt. Sunday’s flush added a second large liquidation wave before the week had even closed.
What comes next
U.S. equity and bond markets reopen on Monday, November 9, giving crypto its first read on how traditional markets react to the weekend’s move. Traders will also watch Tuesday’s U.S. October consumer price report, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, for the next signal on the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path. The October jobs report, which showed 165,000 new jobs, had already pushed traders to price in a higher chance of a December rate hike.
The levels in focus are the ones Bitcoin just lost. The $75,000 area, which held through most of the weekend, is now the first level above the market. Below it, the $73,000 to $72,500 zone from August’s breakout is the next area traders are watching, with $70,000 beyond that.
