Bitcoin Falls Below 81,000 Dollars as Crypto Liquidations Near 1 Billion Dollars

Crypto markets sold off hard on Thursday, October 15, after US inflation data came in hotter than expected and traders rushed to cut risk.

Bitcoin traded below 81,000 dollars early on Thursday, down about 3 percent over 24 hours, CoinDesk reported. Exchange data tracked by Finnhub on Thursday morning put bitcoin near 80,600 dollars, down about 3.5 percent on the day, after a low near 80,226 dollars.

Ether took the bigger hit. It fell 6.4 percent to about 2,356 dollars, CoinDesk said. Losses spread across the market. XRP and Solana fell about 5 percent each, dogecoin dropped about 6 percent, and zcash lost about 13 percent.

The forced selling was heavy. Exchanges closed nearly 483 million dollars in bitcoin and ether futures positions over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data reported by CoinDesk. Ether contracts accounted for about 286 million dollars of that total, against 197 million dollars for bitcoin. Across all cryptocurrencies, liquidations approached 1 billion dollars. Solana futures alone saw about 31 million dollars closed.

Inflation data set off the move

The selloff followed the October 14 release of September consumer price data in the United States. Headline inflation rose 3.7 percent from a year earlier, above the 3.6 percent forecast and up from 3.4 percent in August. Core inflation rose 2.6 percent. Gasoline prices jumped 9.1 percent in the month and drove more than half of the monthly increase.

The numbers revived bets that the Federal Reserve could raise rates at its October meeting. Market pricing briefly put the chance of a hike near 50 percent before easing back to about 30 percent, CoinDesk reported. Higher rates tend to pull money out of speculative assets, and crypto sits near the front of that line.

Fund flows pointed the same way. US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded 150.5 million dollars in outflows on October 14, reversing an inflow of 175.7 million dollars the day before, according to figures reported by CoinDesk and The Hindu BusinessLine.

Asia sold off at the same time

Crypto fell alongside Asian stocks. South Korea's Kospi plunged 8 percent on Thursday and triggered a circuit breaker, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.6 percent. In India, traders watched the 81,300 to 81,500 dollar zone as bitcoin's first support, with 80,000 dollars below that, The Hindu BusinessLine reported, citing market commentary from the Giottus exchange.

Bitcoin now sits just above the 80,000 dollar level that traders watched all week. A clean break below it would mark a new low for this selloff, and the next test comes with US producer price and retail sales data due later on Thursday.