Bitcoin fell below $68,000 and Ether dropped under $1,900 as an accelerating selloff wiped $150B from total cryptocurrency market value over 48 hours. Prior to breaching $68,000, Bitcoin touched $68,222 on Coinbase while Ether, XRP and Solana also sank to fresh lows, with bullish bets accounting for $753M of $803M in 24 hour liquidations tracked by Coinalyze.
The latest leg down extended a slide that saw both Bitcoin and Ether break below their 200 day moving averages and pushed Bitcoin to its lowest level since August, erasing $60B in crypto market capitalization in a four hour window as Bitcoin crossed under $70,000. Across other trackers, 24 hour liquidations of leveraged long positions reached as high as $1.3B, while Solana dropped to $78 and Zcash fell below $900 for the steepest 24 hour decline among the top 10 tokens by market value.
Rising bond yields, higher real rates and a stronger dollar have weighed on non yielding assets even as Asian equities advanced, following an October US consumer price report showing 0.4% headline and 0.3% core monthly gains that lifted market odds of a December Fed rate hike to about 90%. Spot Bitcoin ETFs also recorded more than $2.5B in net outflows over two weeks, including $1.44B across five consecutive sessions.
