Cryptocurrency markets experienced a sharp selloff Thursday before rebounding Friday, with major digital assets posting losses across the board. Bitcoin dipped below $81,000, Ethereum fell close to $2,400, and the top ten cryptocurrencies all traded in the red over the seven-day period.
Nearly $1 billion in crypto longs were liquidated over the past 24 hours, with Ethereum long positions hit particularly hard. Losses extended beyond major cryptocurrencies, with Zcash falling 11% in a day, NEAR down 16%, and Dogecoin and Chainlink both posting double-digit weekly declines.
Exchange-traded fund inflows reversed sharply. Spot Bitcoin funds shed $484.9 million on Wednesday, marking the worst day since spring, followed by $244 million in outflows Thursday. This pushed October into negative territory at minus $400 million for the month. Ethereum funds bled money for eight consecutive sessions, losing $640 million over that stretch.
Multiple factors contributed to the downturn. Ethereum funding rates flipped negative midweek for the first time in months, indicating traders betting on price declines now outnumber those betting on gains. Oil prices jumped on news of attacks against Iranian tankers, pushing investors away from riskier assets.
By Friday, crypto majors began rebounding, with Bitcoin trading back above $82,000 and Ethereum re-approaching $2,500. A government wallet moved $1.01 billion in Bitcoin from the Bitfinex hack seizure to a new unlabeled address Thursday, though no exchange deposits followed.
In other developments, Solana's biggest exchange Orca and lender Loopscale merged into a New York company called Formation, aiming to finance AI, energy, robotics and defense. Securitize launched tokenized versions of 12 major U.S. stocks on Solana, including Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon and Microsoft. Pump.fun introduced Custom Pairs, allowing any Pump token to be paired with other tokens on the platform.
