Altcoins lead crypto declines as Asian stocks drop; bitcoin little changed since midnight — SkimNews
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- Bitcoin fell to just above $80,000 near the Oct. 8 low before recovering to about $81,200, down roughly 0.5% since midnight UTC, with buyers stepping in around 02:30 UTC.
- South Korea's Kospi plunged 8% and triggered circuit breakers while Nasdaq 100 futures slid about 1%, extending Wednesday's 1.9% drop in the Nasdaq Composite as Asian equities set the risk-off tone.
- Odds of an October Fed rate hike spiked to nearly 47% on CME's FedWatch after Wednesday's hotter-than-expected inflation print before easing back to roughly 26%, leaving Treasury yields and hike pricing as the next signals.
- Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures bets were liquidated over 24 hours, up from about $136 million a day earlier, with ether longs seeing $200 million wiped out versus $115 million in bitcoin longs — pointing to heavier long leverage in ETH.
- Altcoins led the losses: ether dropped 2.0% near $2,370, the CoinDesk 80 fell 2.2% against 0.7% for the bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 5, and pump.fun plunged 9.4% as the Memecoin Index lost 4.0%.
- Traders added to bitcoin positions during the drop — notional futures open interest rose 1.6% even as spot fell over 2%, implying the number of contracts climbed roughly 3.7%, though the taker long/short ratio was skewed bearish at 51.67% shorts.
- Silver perpetual futures outranked zcash (ZEC) in 24-hour liquidations, a sign of growing TradFi asset traction on crypto platforms, while bitcoin's implied volatility (BVIV) held above 40% for a second straight day.
Why it matters: The $200 million in liquidated ether longs versus $115 million in bitcoin longs shows ETH carried the heaviest speculative excess, meaning any further unwind would amplify pain in altcoins more than in BTC. The Fed's October rate-hike odds collapsed from 47% to 26% in hours, a whipsaw that directly drove the $1 billion in liquidations and will keep leverage traders pinned to the next CPI and Treasury-yield prints before the U.S. open.
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