Crypto bulls face $261M in liquidations as Bitcoin drops

Crypto traders betting on a continued rise in the market experienced significant setbacks on October 23, enduring the second-largest liquidation day of the month.  

The total crypto liquidations reached $261 million, with more than $203.5 million resulting from long positions.  

This marks the second-highest amount liquidated this October, following the $450.8 million liquidated on October 1 when Bitcoin fell by approximately 5%.  

Long bets on Ether (CRYPTO:ETH) faced the largest liquidations, totaling over $77 million in the past 24 hours, followed by around $58.3 million in Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) call options.  

Traders were initially optimistic as Bitcoin approached $70,000 on October 21, its highest level in three months.  

However, Bitcoin's price could not maintain momentum, dropping to a low of $65,500 on October 23 before rebounding slightly to $67,386, reflecting a 0.5% increase over 24 hours.  

Meanwhile, Ethereum experienced a decline of 1.7% on the same day, dropping to $2,552 after reaching a high of $2,620 within 24 hours.  

Earlier, it had hit a two-month peak of $2,750 on October 21.  

Onchain data indicates that high transaction fees on the Ethereum network are discouraging user activity, which may reduce demand for ETH staking and dampen investor enthusiasm.  

Despite these market fluctuations, institutional investors remained engaged, as indicated by the U.S.-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) experiencing net inflows of $198.5 million on October 23.  

Notably, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF received a substantial inflow of $323.6 million, while the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF faced outflows of $99 million and $25.2 million, respectively.  

At press time, the Bitcoin price was $67,280.47.