Bitcoin briefly fell below $80,000 on Saturday, and traders with leveraged bets on higher prices took most of the losses. Crypto longs lost $404 million in four hours, according to CoinGlass, while total liquidations across the market reached $815.26 million over the past 24 hours — up 218% from the previous day. A total of 201,012 traders were hit.

The slide followed two heavy sessions of outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, which lost a combined $773 million on Thursday and Friday, according to SoSoValue data. It also coincided with BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes disclosing that he had closed out the directional book at his family office, and with reports from the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal that the United States is reducing staff at embassies in the Middle East over Iranian threats.

Long Liquidations Dominate

Of the $436.44 million in positions liquidated in the four hours to 1 p.m. ET, $404.15 million were longs, per CoinGlass. Most of that came in two bursts: traders saw $208.21 million in long positions wiped out in the 15 minutes from 10:15 a.m. ET, and another $131.17 million followed in the 15 minutes from 11:15 a.m.

Bitcoin fell to about $79,280 around 11:20 a.m. ET before climbing back to $80,138 by 1 p.m. Shorts then made up $8.35 million of the $10.62 million in positions liquidated in the hour to 1:09 p.m. ET.

Long liquidations between 8 a.m. and noon ET totaled $401.91 million — the most for any four-hour period since Oct. 14, when $505.57 million in longs were wiped out.

Ether and Hyperliquid Liquidations

Ethereum liquidations reached $136.72 million, close to bitcoin's $158.45 million, even though ether holds only about 18% of bitcoin's market value. Longs made up 94.2% of bitcoin liquidations and 92.7% of ether's. The largest single order was an $11.85 million ether long on Binance, closed at $2,307.65.

Binance accounted for $226.07 million of the four-hour total, and 96% of those closures were longs. On Hyperliquid, an onchain futures exchange, $70.47 million was liquidated, with 99.8% of it long positions.

Open interest in crypto futures fell 2.2% to $140.10 billion over the same 24-hour window. An exchange liquidates a leveraged position when the trader's margin cannot cover the losses; because those closures execute automatically, sharp price moves can wipe out clusters of positions within minutes, as Saturday's two 15-minute bursts showed.

ETF Outflows

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $137.94 million in net outflows on Friday, after $635.49 million on Thursday. BlackRock's fund accounted for $110.34 million of Friday's total. Daily flow figures for the funds, which began trading in January 2024, are closely watched as a gauge of institutional demand for bitcoin.

Wu Blockchain flagged the back-to-back outflows in an X post on Oct. 23:

Spot Bitcoin ETFs Recorded $635M in Net Outflows on October 22

On October 22 (ET), spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded total net outflows of $635M, led by BlackRock's IBIT with $254M. Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded total net outflows of $111M, led by BlackRock's ETHA with $75.45M. pic.twitter.com/Vj2TzNyR03

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 23, 2026 X

That followed a strong start to the week: the funds took in $1.078 billion from Monday through Wednesday and held $104.43 billion in net assets as of Friday.

Spot ether ETFs recorded $4.35 million in inflows on Friday but lost $220.60 million over the week. The products have now seen outflows on 14 of 17 trading days in October.

Hayes Closes Directional Book

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said early Saturday that he had closed out the directional book at Maelstrom, his family office. "I dumped it all," he wrote on X. A directional book is the set of positions a firm holds to profit from price moves, as distinct from market-neutral trades.

He added that it "looks a bit dicey out there in macro and geopolitical land," though he did not specify which risks he meant.

Middle East Tensions

The Associated Press reported that the State Department is reducing staff at U.S. embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with an internal memo increased Iranian efforts to target U.S. personnel. The Wall Street Journal separately reported evacuations at embassies and military bases across the Middle East.

President Trump has threatened a re-escalation of the war against Iran after the midterms in early November, with Election Day scheduled for Nov. 3.

Market Prices

Bitcoin was down 2.2% over 24 hours at $79,700. Ether, XRP and solana were down 3% to 4%.