Bitcoin and Crypto Prices Retreat Amid Regional Bank Concerns
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices fell sharply early Friday as U.S. financial stocks sold off on Thursday amid renewed fears surrounding bad loans at regional banks. This week's cryptocurrency sell-off comes after a historic liquidation event last week. Miner Bitfarms announced plans to raise $500 million in an upsized offering, while Hive Digital saw its price target doubled by an analyst.
Bitcoin early Friday fell to near $105,600, retreating more than 5% over the prior 24 hours and pushing its decline on the week to more than 13%. The price of bitcoin on Oct. 6 hit a record above $126,000, prior to last week's liquidation event sparked by President Donald Trump's latest tariff threat against China.
Ethereum on Friday traded around $3,780, falling 7% over the past 24 hours with a 13% drop on the week.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs Record Massive Outflows
Meanwhile, spot bitcoin ETFs on Thursday recorded $530.9 million in outflows, the largest amount since Aug. 19 which saw $523 million in outflows. The Ark 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) led outflows at $275.2 million, followed by the Fidelity Wise Origin BTC ETF (FBTC) at $132 million.
Ethereum ETFs saw $56.8 million in outflows Thursday. The ethereum funds recorded $428.5 million in outflows on Monday, but rebounded on Tuesday and Wednesday with inflows of $236.2 million and $169.6 million, respectively.
Crypto Liquidations Ramp Up
Crypto liquidations have also ramped up over the past 24 hours, with $1.23 billion liquidated from the market, according to CoinGlass data. A majority were long positions at $920.6 million as of Friday morning, with $305.5 million short positions liquidated.
Bitcoin accounted for almost $453.2 million of the losses, followed by ethereum at nearly $277 million.
Bitcoin Mining Stocks Tumble
Bitcoin mining stocks tumbled Friday morning, continuing their sell-off from Thursday. Hive Digital (HIVE) led declines with a more than 12% drop in premarket action.
Rosenblatt on Friday doubled its price target on HIVE stock to 10, noting that the bitcoin miner's contracted electrical power deals have become "incredibly valuable in this AI-led market," The Fly reported. The firm expects HIVE stock has additional upside potential as companies execute on their power pipelines. Rosenblatt also believes that the growing optimism about high-performance compute reduces exposure to bitcoin mining at a time when profitability has been pressured by rising network competition.
The firm kept a buy rating on HIVE shares.
Elsewhere, Bitfarms (BITF) on Friday announced the pricing of its upsized, $500 million convertible note offering. The miner increased its offering from the initially-proposed $300 million level on Wednesday.
Bitfarms plans to use the net proceeds to fund general corporate purposes, and may use some funding or cash on hand to fund capped call transactions. BITF stock skidded 4.9% early Friday.
Historic Liquidation Sparks Major Sell-Off
The price of bitcoin briefly dropped below $109,000 last Friday evening, while ethereum retreated near $3,620 after President Donald Trump threatened additional tariffs on China.
CoinGlass reported that over 1.6 million crypto traders were squeezed into liquidating positions on Friday, with over $19.13 billion liquidated from the crypto markets.
JPMorgan analysts in a Thursday note reported that the liquidations were likely driven by crypto-native investors, rather than institutional firms or retail investors, The Block reported. Perpetual futures, a product that crypto-native traders typically use, experienced a sharp deleveraging between Oct. 10 and Oct. 14, according to the firm. Open interest in bitcoin and ethereum perpetual contracts fell 40% in dollar terms, indicating that crypto-native investors were the primary drivers of the correction. Meanwhile, bitcoin ETFs saw a more modest $220 million in outflows during that period, with ethereum ETFs recorded $370 million in outflows. CME bitcoin futures, which gauges institutional positioning, saw few liquidations, according to JPMorgan.
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