Credit Market's 'Cockroach' Problem Hits BTC as $1.2B Gets Liquidated: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin BTC $ 106,934.19 slipped below $105,000, wiping out all of its early-week gains, as mounting concerns over credit market stress and a wave of forced liquidations hit crypto markets.

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Over $1.2 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data, as the broader crypto market dropped by 8.89% based on the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index.

The timing coincides with a broader wave of credit-related anxiety in traditional markets. The recent bankruptcies of First Brands and Tricolor have raised fresh questions about the health of corporate debt markets and drove down the prices of risk assets across the board.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that these events may be early signs of deeper credit excess, telling investors, “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be forewarned on this one.”

That uncertainty spilled over into crypto markets as leveraged traders scrambled to cover positions. Nearly 79% of liquidated trades were longs, reflecting misplaced optimism about a rebound.

Bitcoin is holding up better than altcoins, many of which posted double-digit losses. That’s not surprising according to Thomas Chen, CEO of Function and former TradFi executive.

“If we’re again in a highly levered situation with altcoins, and Bitcoin drops 10%, alts can easily go down 40–50% if the interest remains weak, and it’s game over,” Chen told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. “It’s the “altcoin” bucket that gets dumped first under low market confidence conditions. Indeed, we've seen this happen many times.

The macro backdrop isn’t helping. Fears of a prolonged US-China trade spat, regional bank fragility, and weakening confidence in long-dated sovereign bonds are rattling markets, even with the Fed cutting interest rates now being a near certainty.

That fear has pushed gold toward $4,400 and 10-year Treasury yields below 4%. Gold-backed tokens like XAUT and PAXG have benefited from the precious metal’s rise and keep outperforming the wider market.

“It’s worth bringing up that markets often overreact and then correct themselves,” Chen added.

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

Crypto Oct. 17: SynFutures (F), a perpetual swaps DEX powered by Base, hosts an AMA event on X.

Macro Oct. 17: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) Nothing scheduled.

(Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

Governance votes & calls Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to base quorum on Delegated Voting Power (DVP) to resolve governance quorum issues. Voting ends Oct. 18.

Unlocks Oct. 18: FTN $ 1.8511

Token Launches Oct. 17: Aster ASTER $ 1.1118 Oct. 17: U2U (U2U) to be listed on Kraken.



Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

The entire crypto market is reeling on Friday after continuation to the downside with several assets hitting multi-month lows.

Ether trades at $3,730 after sliding by more than 7% in the past 24 hours, while the likes of BNB, LINK and SUI are all down by more tha 10%.

The move was spurred by another $1.2 billion worth of derivatives positions being liquidated, $840 million on the long side, which added to the woes from last weekend when $19 billion was liquidated.

Equities are also showing weakness with the S&P500 losing 3.3% of its value in the past week, a sell-off that is being mirrored in the more illiquid and speculative crypto market.

Much of the altcoin market depends on the direction of bitcoin; if it can hold above the psychological level of support at $100,000 and perhaps more importantly the level at $98,000, it could provide the impetus for altcoins to recover.

If those levels are broken onlookers will be questioning whether the crypto market is slipping back into a dreaded bear market, a cycle that many analysts suggested would not occur this time around due to institutional flows into crypto ETFs and purchasing power from digital asset treasury companies (DATs).

Derivatives Positioning

The BTC futures market is exhibiting stability, with Open Interest holding steady at approximately $25.7 billion and the 3-month annualized basis remaining firm in the 5-6% range. In a significant shift from previous days, funding rates are now flat across all major venues.

The BTC options market is exhibiting extreme, conflicting sentiment. The 24-hour Put/Call Volume shows a slight bearish bias with a 45-55 split favoring puts. However, this is overshadowed by the soaring 1-week 25 Delta Skew at approximately 21%. This exceptionally high positive skew indicates aggressive positioning and a massive premium being paid for short-term call options, signaling strong conviction for a near-term rally despite the active demand for downside protection.

Coinglass data shows $1.2 billion in 24 hour liquidations, with a 78-22 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($414 million), BTC ($268 million) and Others ($109 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $103,800 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price drop.

Market Movements

BTC is down 3.14% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $104,809.77 (24hrs: -6.03%)

ETH is down 3.48% at $3,730.11 (24hrs: -7.91%)

CoinDesk 20 is down 4.23% at 3,414.49 (24hrs: -8.22%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps at 2.85%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0018% (1.9327% annualized) on Binance

DXY is down 0.12% at 98.22

Gold futures are up 1.02% at $4,348.50

Silver futures are down 1.01% at $52.76

Nikkei 225 closed down 1.44% at 47,582.15

Hang Seng closed down 2.48% at 25,247.10

FTSE is down 1.39% at 9,304.95

Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.32% at 5,577.36

DJIA closed on Thursday down 0.65% at 45,952.24

S&P 500 closed down 0.63% at 6,629.07

Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.47% at 22,562.54

S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.58% at 30,458.80

S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.37% at 2,868.97

U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 1.9 bps at 3.957%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.99% at 6,602.50

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.21% at 24,532.00

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.68% at 45,847.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 59.83% (0.49%)

Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03544 (-1.58%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,111 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $45.31

Total Fees: 3.16 BTC / $347,963

CME Futures Open Interest: 145,205 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 24.7 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 6.97%

Technical Analysis

BTC managed to close above the 200-day EMA yesterday, but has since slipped back below $105K this morning. For the bulls, the key objective now is a decisive move back above $107.4K — a level that would confirm a weekly swing failure pattern and potentially reignite momentum for a reversal.

A failure to close above that threshold could see price action gravitate toward the 50-week EMA at $99.8K — a critical support that has underpinned the market’s uptrend since October 2023, marking the beginning of this cycle’s rally.

Crypto Equities

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $330.25 (-1.8%), -3.68% at $318.11

Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $128.46 (-4.48%), -4.05% at $123.13

Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $39.91 (-4.79%), -6.74% at $37.22

Bullish (BLSH): closed at $57.55 (-1.88%), -3.53% at $55.55

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $20.26 (-11.27%), -5.5% at $19.15

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $19.55 (-11.66%), -6.96% at $18.19

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.67 (-1.35%), -6.25% at $18.44

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $19.99 (-13.84%), -9.25% at $18.14

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $59.33 (-9.97%), -7.97% at $54.60

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.18 (-8.34%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

Strategy (MSTR): closed at $283.84 (-4.35%), -3.94% at $272.75

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $24.67 (-3.14%), -6.08% at $23.17

SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $14.57 (-3.83%), -6.04% at $13.69

Upexi (UPXI): closed at $5.61 (-6.81%), -9.09% at $5.10

Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.85 (-13.15%), -5.41% at $

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

Daily net flow: -$530.9 million

Cumulative net flows: $61.87 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.35 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$56.8 million

Cumulative net flows: $14.84 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 6.84 million

Source: Farside Investors

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