Bitcoin Trades Near $82,500 After Week of Liquidations Hit Leveraged Longs

Bitcoin ended a punishing week around $82,500 on Saturday, Oct. 10, down about 34% from its all-time high of $126,080.

The slide ran from near $86,600 on Oct. 6 to an intraday low of roughly $80,400 on Oct. 8, a drop of about 7% in 48 hours. Buyers returned quickly. Bitcoin was changing hands near $82,600 on Oct. 9 and has held about there since.

Where the liquidations hit

The damage fell mostly on traders betting on higher prices. CoinGlass data showed about $547 million in leveraged positions liquidated over 24 hours on Oct. 7, most of them longs. On Thursday, Oct. 8, CoinGlass counted $974 million, including $896 million in longs. Ethereum led that day with $311 million, ahead of Bitcoin at $238 million.

One weekly tally puts the total above $2.4 billion. Long positions made up roughly 85% to 93% of liquidations over several days, and single sessions forced out between 100,000 and 180,000 traders. Total crypto market capitalization shed about $110 billion within 36 hours.

A liquidation is not a spot sale. It is a leveraged derivatives position closed by the exchange once a trader's margin runs out. Those forced closures can add selling pressure, though, which is how a modest price drop turns into a cascade.

Open interest, the total value of outstanding futures and derivatives positions, held steady near $150 billion. Short-term holders also sent 55,600 BTC to exchanges at a loss during the decline.

What else was moving

No single cause explains the drop. Coin Tribune's analysis said as much: it is impossible to pin the whole decline on one factor, and deleveraging was happening alongside everything else.

The backdrop was hostile to risk assets. Oil climbed above $101 a barrel, and Treasury yields rose above 5.3%. The Federal Open Market Committee raised its target range by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4% at its Sept. 15-16 meeting, and the minutes of that meeting were scheduled for release Oct. 7.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw outflows, running into the hundreds of millions of dollars on peak days. Nearly $1 billion left the funds over two sessions before Oct. 9. On Oct. 9, the funds took in a modest $21.13 million, led by BlackRock's IBIT.

Altcoins and crypto stocks fell harder

On Thursday, Oct. 8, Bitcoin traded near $80,986, down 2.9% on the day, with total Bitcoin market cap at about $1.62 trillion. Ethereum fell to $2,432, down 9.3% on the week and 18% on the year. XRP dropped 6.2% on the day. Solana sat near $108.

Crypto-linked equities took the hit in midday trading on Oct. 8. Strategy, Coinbase and Block each fell more than 2%. Ethereum treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies dropped more than 5%, to its lowest level since mid-September.

Miners that have pivoted toward AI data centers fared worse. Riot Platforms fell more than 9%, Cipher Mining 7.9%, CleanSpark 7.1% and Core Scientific about 2%. Those are share-price moves, not measures of what any particular holder lost.

The anniversary, and a big short

The selloff landed almost exactly one year after Oct. 10, 2025, when crypto suffered what is generally cited as its largest liquidation event on record, about $19.1 billion in leveraged bets. One market tracker puts Bitcoin's market cap at about $1.72 trillion now, versus $2.43 trillion then. This week's wipeout is a fraction of that.

A Hyperliquid trader is now sitting on a 391.48 BTC short worth about $32.36 million, according to wallet-tracking data. The position was opened near $82,863 with 13x cross leverage, and its liquidation price is $99,801. The account holds $7.19 million in equity. That is about 1% of Hyperliquid's roughly 38,040 BTC in open interest, so the position alone will not move the market.

Bears have some numbers on their side. Polymarket gives Bitcoin a 27.5% chance of touching $100,000 by Dec. 31.

The other side argues the dip was a buying chance. 24/7 Wall St. noted that buying interest returned quickly after the $80,400 low, and framed the choice as whether $80,000 is "a gift or a trap." Its own account also notes the bounce was a recovery from a sharp drop, not a break back above recent highs.

What to watch this weekend

Technical levels cluster around $82,500, with a band between $81,000 and $84,000. Bitcoin's partial recovery stopped right at the $82,500 line.

CoinGlass's liquidation map shows roughly $3.3 billion in shorts stacked between the current price and $85,000. A rally through that zone would force those shorts to buy back, on a weekend when liquidity is thin. A drop through $81,000 would put the longs who survived this week back in the firing line. The Fed minutes and the oil and yield moves behind this week's pressure remain the live variables as trading resumes Monday.