Crypto longs lose $404 million in four hours as bitcoin briefly slips below $80,000

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $80,000 on Saturday, and traders with leveraged bets on higher prices took most of the losses. Of the $436.44 million in positions liquidated in the four hours to 1 p.m. ET, $404.15 million were longs, per CoinGlass liquidation data.

Most of the liquidations came in two bursts. Traders saw $208.21 million in longs liquidated in the 15 minutes from 10:15 a.m. ET, as bitcoin Bitcoin (BTC) fell from about $80,640 to $80,100, and another $131.17 million in the 15 minutes from 11:15 a.m., according to CoinGlass.

Long liquidations between 8 a.m. and noon ET totaled $401.91 million. That was the most for any four-hour period since the night of Oct. 14, when $505.57 million in longs were wiped out.

Bitcoin fell to about $79,280 around 11:20 a.m. ET before climbing back to $80,138 by 1 p.m., according to The Block's Bitcoin Price page. As BTC's price recovered, shorts made up $8.35 million of the $10.62 million liquidated in the hour to 1:09 p.m. ET. Bitcoin was down 1.9% over 24 hours, while ether Ethereum (ETH) was down 3.8% at $2,314.

Liquidations over the past 24 hours came to $815.26 million, up 218% from the previous day, with 201,012 traders hit, per the data. Open interest in crypto futures fell 2.2% to $140.10 billion over the same period. An exchange liquidates a leveraged position when the trader's margin can't cover the losses.

Ether and Hyperliquid

Ether positions accounted for $136.72 million of the four-hour total, against $158.45 million for bitcoin. Ether liquidations totaled $136.72 million, close to bitcoin’s $158.45 million, despite ether currently having only about 18% of bitcoin’s market capitalization.

Longs made up 94.2% of bitcoin liquidations and 92.7% of ether's. The largest single liquidation order of the past 24 hours was an $11.85 million ETH-USDT long on Binance, closed at $2,307.65, per CoinGlass.

Binance accounted for $226.07 million of the four-hour liquidations, 96% of them longs. On Hyperliquid, the onchain perpetual futures exchange, $70.47 million in positions were liquidated, and 99.8% of them were longs, per the data.

Bitcoin ETFs record two days of net outflows

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $137.94 million in net outflows on Friday, according to The Block's analysis of SoSoValue data. BlackRock's IBIT accounted for $110.34 million of that, or 80%, and Fidelity's FBTC for $31.78 million, partly offset by $4.19 million in inflows to Morgan Stanley's MSBT.

Friday's outflows came after an even worse day, with the funds logging $635.49 million in net outflows on Thursday. The funds had taken in $1.078 billion from Monday through Wednesday, which left them with $304.73 million in net inflows for the week. The funds held total net assets worth $104.43 billion as of Friday, roughly flat on the week. 

Spot ether ETFs had $4.35 million in net inflows on Friday, but those inflows were not enough to offset outflows from earlier in the week, with the funds logging $220.60 million in net outflows over the week. The ether funds have seen net outflows on 14 of 17 trading days in October, totaling $1.175 billion, SoSoValue data show.

Bitcoin also slid on Thursday alongside a sell-off in tech stocks, The Block reported.

Hayes 'dumped it all'

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said early Saturday that he had closed out the directional book at Maelstrom, his family office. "I dumped it all," Hayes wrote on X at 2:18 a.m. ET, adding that he took profits on ETH, ENA, UNI "and other shitcoins."

"I think we gotta go down to go up," Hayes wrote. "It looks a bit dicey out there in macro and geopolitical land." He said he would "sit on the sidelines and wait for the all clear signal."

Hayes did not say which geopolitical risks he meant. The State Department is reducing staff at U.S. embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the Associated Press reported late Friday. An internal memo cited increased Iranian efforts to target U.S. personnel, according to the AP.