Bitcoin recovered above $81,000 after briefly falling to just above $80,000 at around 02:30 UTC, near its Oct. 8 low, as a sharp decline in Asian equities weighed on cryptocurrencies and altcoins recorded steeper losses.

Bitcoin (BTC), quoted at $81,577.53, was trading around $81,200, down about 0.5% since midnight UTC. The cryptocurrency had earlier been down roughly 1%, but buyers stepped in just above $80,000. The move approached the Oct. 8 low of approximately $80,300.

South Korea’s Kospi plunged 8% and triggered circuit breakers, the temporary trading halts exchanges use to slow panic selling during extreme moves. Nasdaq 100 index futures fell about 1%, extending the Nasdaq Composite’s 1.9% decline on Wednesday. The CoinDesk 80 (CD80) index fell 2.2%, compared with a decline of about 0.7% for the bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 5 (CD5). All but six members of the CoinDesk 100 (CD100) were lower.

Ether (ETH), quoted at $2,429.41, fell 2.0% to near $2,370. Lower-market-cap tokens suffered larger losses: pump.fun (PUMP), quoted at $0.004618, dropped 9.4%, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index declined 4.0%.

The probability of an October Federal Reserve interest-rate increase had risen to nearly 47% on CME’s FedWatch, a tool that derives rate probabilities from fed funds futures pricing, after Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected inflation report, up from about 22% beforehand. It has since fallen back to roughly 26%, leaving Treasury yields and rate-hike pricing as key signals ahead of the U.S. market open.

Derivatives positioning

Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures positions were liquidated — forcibly closed when a leveraged position’s margin can no longer cover its losses — over 24 hours as the market weakened following Wednesday’s inflation report, up from about $136 million the previous day. The increase highlighted how heavily positioned traders were ahead of the data.

Ether recorded more liquidations than bitcoin. About $200 million in ETH long positions were liquidated, significantly more than the $115 million in bitcoin longs, indicating heavier long leverage in ether.

XAG, or silver, perpetual futures also recorded more liquidations than zcash (ZEC), one of the leading privacy coins. The comparison reflects the growing use of crypto platforms to trade traditional-finance assets.

Crypto futures volume over 24 hours reached $252 billion, a 61% increase over the period, while open interest (OI) remained largely unchanged at $139.6 billion. The data suggests that activity primarily involved existing positions being closed or churned rather than a substantial new build-up of leverage. Shorts accounted for 51.67% of taker flow, a measure of aggressive market orders, little changed from 52% a day earlier.

Bitcoin’s spot price was down more than 2% over 24 hours, while notional futures OI rose 1.6%. Because OI is measured in dollars, the move implies that the number of contracts increased by roughly 3.7%, indicating that net new capital entered during the decline. The 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) was negative, as were readings for most other coins, suggesting that the new positions were more likely shorts. OI does not identify position direction, however. Bitcoin’s perpetual funding rate positive, meaning longs continued to pay to hold their positions.

Ether and solana showed a similar pattern. ETH and SOL futures OI remained largely stable despite spot-price declines that were larger than bitcoin’s. Stable dollar-denominated OI amid falling prices implies that the number of contracts increased by approximately the size of the price decline, another indication of fresh positions. Both assets also had negative CVD readings and positive funding rates.

DOGE and NEAR appeared to be undergoing de-risking. Their OI declines were substantially larger than their spot-price losses, indicating that traders were closing positions and capital was leaving rather than simply being marked down.

Bitcoin’s implied volatility remained above 40%. The BVIV index, which tracks implied volatility priced into bitcoin’s options market, was just above 40% for a second consecutive day, up from recent lows near 34%. The increase indicated renewed demand for options, although volatility remained well below the panic highs recorded in February and June. Ether’s volatility index showed a similar pattern.

Bitcoin options flow was mixed, while ether’s was more defensive. On Deribit, the leading crypto options exchange, BTC calls at the $90,000 and $86,000 strikes ranked first and second in 24-hour options volume. The other three contracts in the top five were puts. Calls above the current market price indicated positioning for a rebound, while the puts represented hedging. In ether, puts ranked at the top of the list.

Token performance

Pump.fun (PUMP), the Solana memecoin launchpad token, fell 9.4%, the largest decline in the CD100. Other Solana ecosystem tokens also weakened: Jito (JTO), quoted at $0.4695, fell 6.2%, and Jupiter (JUP) declined 6.1%. Solana (SOL) itself slipped 1.1% to about $103.

Pyth Network (PYTH), quoted at $0.08483, rose 2.8%, extending a rally that began Oct. 8 after its DAO voted to direct all product revenue into monthly buybacks. CoinMarketCap reported approximately $96 million in PYTH volume over 24 hours, a 67% increase from the previous 24-hour period.

Starknet (STRK), quoted at $0.07171, gained 11% after falling 17% on Oct. 13. The token remained 278% above its yearly low of $0.021, recorded on Aug. 16.

Canton (CC), the institutional blockchain token, quoted at $0.1040, fell 7.3%. Optimism (OP), quoted at $0.1393, declined 7.0%, while Aerodrome (AERO) fell 6.4%, as limited altcoin liquidity continued to weigh on the sector.

Larger tokens held up better. Tron (TRX), quoted at $0.3366, was little changed; Monero (XMR) fell 0.55%; and Hyperliquid (HYPE) declined 0.96% to about $80.

Source: CoinDesk

Update (Oct. 15, 13:45 UTC): Headline rewritten.