According to Cointelegraph, crypto bulls who anticipated a continued market rise experienced the second-largest day of liquidations in October. The market has now stabilized after Bitcoin's drop affected the prices of major cryptocurrencies. On October 23, total crypto liquidations reached $261 million, with over $203.5 million coming from long bets. This is second only to the $450.8 million worth of crypto longs liquidated on October 1 when Bitcoin (BTC) dropped by around 5%, according to CoinGlass data.
Ether (ETH) long bets faced the biggest liquidation, with over $77 million wiped out in the last 24 hours, followed by approximately $58.3 million in Bitcoin call options. Traders were optimistic that Bitcoin could continue to rise as its price neared $70,000 on October 21, its highest in three months. However, it failed to sustain momentum and fell to a low of $65,500 on October 23 before recovering to $67,386, up 0.5% over 24 hours.
ETH posted the biggest loss among the top ten cryptocurrencies, down 1.7% on the day to $2,552, falling from a 24-hour high of $2,620. It had climbed to a two-month high of $2,750 on October 21 before its decline. Onchain data indicates that Ethereum's high transaction fees are discouraging activity on the blockchain, reducing the demand for ETH staking and potentially dampening investor optimism.
Despite Bitcoin's volatile day, institutional investors remained undeterred. The 11 United States-based spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw a joint net inflow on October 23, as reported by CoinGlass. The funds collectively saw $198.5 million in net inflows, driven by a $323.6 million inflow to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT). However, this was offset by outflows of $99 million and $25.2 million from the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), respectively.
The US Bitcoin ETFs experienced a seven-trading day inflow streak from October 11 to October 21, during which nearly $2.7 billion was added to the funds. However, an $87.9 million net outflow on October 22 broke the streak.
