Bitcoin Dives Below $100K for Third Time This Month as Crypto Liquidations Top $500 Million

Bitcoin’s price dropped below $100,000 for the third time this month as investors sold off risk assets like cryptocurrencies and tech stocks, with broader worries about the economy weighing on markets. 

The price of the biggest digital coin was recently at $99,611, according to CoinGecko data, after a more than 2% fall over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin plunged below the mythical $100,000 mark on November 4 for the first time since May, and then dipped below the mark again on November 7 after a rebound.

In October, the coin set a new record price of $126,080, but broader concerns over jobs data have pointed almost relentlessly toward an economic slowdown.

Pepperstone research strategist Dilin Wu told Decrypt that the coin over the medium term could still hit new highs, but volatility over the short-term should be expected. 

“Notably, institutional participation and whale activity have diminished, and ETF outflows continue, showing that the key forces needed to drive a sustained rally are still absent,” she said. 

Investors have largely pulled cash out of the U.S. Bitcoin ETFs over the past two weeks, leading to price dips as billions of dollars’ worth of assets leave the funds.

Users on Myriad Markets—a prediction market run by Decrypt‘s parent company, Dastan—remain bullish on Bitcoin, giving the coin a 59% chance of hitting $115,000 sooner than it can fall to $85,000.

Elsewhere, the price of the second biggest digital coin, Ethereum, was down by 5%, trading hands for close to $3,265. 

Solana was down slightly about 3.5%, trading at about $148, while XRP was up by 0.5%—priced at $2.36—on news that a spot ETF giving exposure to the asset began trading Thursday.

Daily liquidations of crypto positions recently sat at $501 million, per data from CoinGlass, with Bitcoin adding about $165 million to the tally. Long positions, or bets that an asset’s price would rise, account for about $380 million of the total liquidations.

Still, some remain upbeat about crypto prices, with Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto fund manager BitBull, telling Decrypt that the BTC would push higher following the dip.

“Bitcoin is still in an uptrend because every pullback has produced a higher low, and buyers keep defending support quickly,” he said, “That steady bid is also showing up across majors coins.”

Bitcoin’s Thursday dive came as the United States government reopens after the longest shutdown in history, with President Trump signing a funding bill late Wednesday following passage in the House of Representatives.

Earlier Wednesday, the White House blamed Democrats for the impasse and threatened to withhold consumer price index (CPI) data, a key economic indicator used by traders. Odds of a rate cut that would buoy digital asset markets by boosting liquidity have dropped to 66.9%, from 85% last week, according to FedWatch tool data.

The downward trend reflects Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s monetary hawkishness in recent weeks. Powell said a rate cut was “not a foregone conclusion” after the bank cut the rate by a quarter point at its October meeting.

But the Fed has also had to wrestle with jobs data that has pointed almost relentlessly toward an economic slowdown. On Tuesday, ADP’s latest real-time estimate of job market trends found that U.S. employers shed more than 11,000 jobs per week through late October. A separate report by Goldman Sachs showed U.S. non farm payrolls declining by 50,000 jobs during October.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with additional detail after publication.