Credit Market ‘Cockroaches’ Problem Hits BTC as $1.2 Billion Liquidated: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless otherwise noted)

Bitcoin BTC$105,571.97 fell below $105,000, erasing all its gains from earlier in the week, as growing concerns over credit market strains and a wave of forced liquidations hit crypto markets.

According to CoinGlass data, more than $1.2 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with the broader crypto market falling 8.89% based on the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20).

The timing coincides with a broader wave of credit anxiety in traditional markets. The recent bankruptcies of First Brands and Tricolor have raised new questions about the health of corporate debt markets and driven down prices of risky assets across the board.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, warned that these events could be the first signs of a larger credit glut, telling investors: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably others. Everyone should be warned about this one.”

This uncertainty spread to crypto markets as leveraged traders scrambled to cover their positions. Nearly 79% of the trades liquidated were long positions, reflecting misplaced optimism about a rebound.

Bitcoin is holding up better than altcoins, many of which have posted double-digit losses. This is not surprising according to Thomas Chen, CEO of Function and former TradFi executive.

“If we are in a high leverage situation with altcoins again and Bitcoin drops 10%, alts can easily drop 40-50% if interest remains low, and it’s game over,” Chen told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. “It is the ‘altcoins’ tranche that is abandoned first in conditions of low market confidence. Indeed, we have seen this happen several times.

The macroeconomic context does not help. Fears of a protracted trade row between the United States and China, the fragility of regional banks and weakening confidence in long-term sovereign bonds are rattling markets, even though the Fed’s interest rate cut is now a virtual certainty.

This fear pushed gold towards $4,400 and 10-year Treasury yields below 4%. Gold-backed tokens like XAUT and PAXG have benefited from the precious metal’s rise and continue to outperform the broader market.

“It should be noted that markets often overreact and then self-correct,” Chen added.

What to watch

For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

• Cryptocurrency
  • October 17: SynFutures (F), a perpetual exchange DEX powered by Base, hosts an AMA event on X.
• Macro
  • October 17: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with President Donald Trump at the White House.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

• Votes and calls on governance
• Unlocks
  • October 18: FTN$1.8370 to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $40 million.
• Token Launches
  • October 17: Aster ASTER$1.0780 The airdrop token claim period ends.
  • October 17: U2U (U2U) will be listed on Kraken.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

Symbolic discussion

By Olivier Knight

• The entire crypto market is reeling on Friday after a continued decline, with several assets hitting multi-month lows.
• Ether is trading at $3,730 after falling more than 7% in the past 24 hours, while stocks like BNB, LINK, and SUI are all down more than 10%.
• The move was prompted by the liquidation of derivatives positions worth another $1.2 billion, or $840 million on the long side, adding to the woes of last weekend, when $19 billion was liquidated.
• Stocks are also showing weakness, with the S&P500 losing 3.3% of its value over the past week, a selloff that is reflected in the more illiquid and speculative crypto market.
• Much of the altcoin market depends on the direction of bitcoin; if it can sustain above the $100,000 psychological support level and perhaps more importantly the $98,000 level, this could provide the impetus for altcoins’ recovery.
• If these levels are breached, onlookers will wonder if the crypto market is falling back into a dreaded bear market, a cycle that many analysts believe would not happen this time around due to institutional flows into crypto ETFs and the purchasing power of digital asset treasury (DAT) companies.

Positioning of derivative products

• The BTC futures market is showing stability, with open interest remaining steady at around $25.7 billion and the 3-month annualized basis remaining firm in the 5-6% range. Unlike previous days, funding rates are now stable across all major venues.
• The BTC options market exhibits extreme and conflicting sentiments. The 24-hour Put/Call volume shows a slight bearish bias with a 45-55 split favoring puts. However, this is overshadowed by the Delta Skew 25’s one-week surge to around 21%. This exceptionally high positive skew indicates aggressive positioning and a massive premium paid for short-term call options, signaling high conviction for a near-term rally despite active demand for downside protection.
• Data from Coinglass shows $1.2 billion in liquidations over 24 hours, with a 78-22 split between long and short positions. ETH ($414 million), BTC ($268 million), and Others ($109 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance’s liquidation heatmap shows $103,800 as the base liquidation level to watch, in case of a price decline.

Market movements

• BTC is down 3.14% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $104,809.77 (24 hours: -6.03%)
• ETH is down 3.48% at $3,730.11 (24 hours: -7.91%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 4.23% at 3,414.49 (24 hours: -8.22%)
• Ether CESR composite staking rate is down 3 basis points to 2.85%
• BTC funding rate is 0.0018% (1.9327% annualized) on Binance

• The DXY is down 0.12% at 98.22
• Gold futures are up 1.02% at $4,348.50
• Silver futures are down 1.01% at $52.76
• The Nikkei 225 closed down 1.44% at 47,582.15
• Hang Seng closed 2.48% lower at 25,247.10
• The FTSE is down 1.39% at 9,304.95
• The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.32% at 5,577.36
• DJIA closed Thursday down 0.65% at 45,952.24
• The S&P 500 closed down 0.63% at 6,629.07
• The Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.47% at 22,562.54
• The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 0.58% at 30,458.80
• The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.37% at 2,868.97
• The 10-year US Treasury yield is down 1.9 bps at 3.957%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.99% at 6,602.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.21% at 24,532.00
• The E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.68% at 45,847.00

Bitcoin Statistics

• BTC dominance: 59.83% (0.49%)
• Ether/bitcoin ratio: 0.03544 (-1.58%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,111 EH/s
• Hash price (spot): $45.31
• Total fees: 3.16 BTC / $347,963
• Open Interest on CME Futures: 145,205 BTC
• BTC valued in gold: 24.7 ounces
• BTC vs. gold market capitalization: 6.97%

Technical analysis

• BTC managed to close above the 200-day EMA yesterday, but has since fallen back below $105,000 this morning. For the bulls, the key target now is a decisive move back above $107.4k – a level that would confirm a weekly swing failure pattern and potentially reignite momentum for a reversal.
• If it fails to close above this threshold, price action could head towards the 50-week EMA at $99.8K – a key support that has sustained the market’s uptrend since October 2023, marking the start of this cycle’s rally.

Crypto Stocks

• Coinbase Global (COIN): Closed Thursday at $330.25 (-1.8%), -3.68% at $318.11
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $128.46 (-4.48%), -4.05% at $123.13
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.91 (-4.79%), -6.74% at $37.22
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $57.55 (-1.88%), -3.53% at $55.55
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $20.26 (-11.27%), -5.5% at $19.15
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): close at $19.55 (-11.66%), -6.96% at $18.19
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.67 (-1.35%), -6.25% at $18.44
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $19.99 (-13.84%), -9.25% at $18.14
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): Closed at $59.33 (-9.97%), -7.97% at $54.60
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.18 (-8.34%)

Crypto Cash Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $283.84 (-4.35%), -3.94% at $272.75
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $24.67 (-3.14%), -6.08% at $23.17
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $14.57 (-3.83%), -6.04% at $13.69
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $5.61 (-6.81%), -9.09% at $5.10
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.85 (-13.15%), -5.41% at $

ETF Feed

Spot BTC ETF

• Daily net flow: -$530.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $61.87 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.35 million

ETH Spot ETF

• Daily net flow: -$56.8 million
• Cumulative net flows: $14.84 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.84 million

Source: Farside Investors

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