Crypto Liquidations Top $500 Million as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP Sink Into the Weekend

Bitcoin dropped below the $109,000 mark on Friday—bringing other cryptocurrencies with it—as stocks and other risk assets dipped while traders digested new inflation data. 

The leading cryptocurrency was trading at its lowest level since early July on Friday morning New York time at $108,617, CoinGecko data shows. 

Over a 24-hour period, Bitcoin is down by close to 4%. Zooming out further and the flagship cryptocurrency has taken an 8% hit over the last 30 days. Earlier this month, the coin hit a new all-time high of $124,128 but it’s now 12% below that level.

Ethereum, too, fell over the last day, erasing its gains over the past seven days after breaking its price record from 2021 last week. The second biggest coin was trading for nearly $4,295, a 6% dip over the last 24 hours. Ethereum’s record stands at $4,946, as set on Sunday, with ETH down about 13% since then.

The drop in crypto prices has hurt futures traders who were longing digital coins and tokens, or betting on their prices to go up. 

Over the past 24 hours, $446 million in long positions have been liquidated across all cryptocurrencies, CoinGlass data shows. A total of $535 million across all positions, including shorts, have been liquidated. 

Other major coins like XRP also plunged: the third-biggest cryptocurrency was recently trading for $2.84 after dipping by 6%; Solana dropped by 3% to hit a price of $209, falling after a six-month high above $217 on Thursday.

The dip in prices comes after the personal consumption expenditures price index on Friday showed that core inflation ran at a 2.9% in July, meeting estimates but coming in higher than June.

Stocks dropped Friday as well, with the S&P 500 dipping 0.6% lower and the Nasdaq losing 0.9%. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have recently traded like U.S. equities as both asset classes experience volatile price movements.

September is typically a bad month for Bitcoin—and stocks—and analysts told Decrypt that a steeper sell-off could happen during the month.

Even with Ethereum’s dip, Myriad Markets users still believe that ETH will rebound and hit a new all-time high of $5,000 by the end of the year, giving that a 75% likelihood of happening. (Disclosure: Myriad is a product of Decrypt‘s parent company, DASTAN.)