The pullback comes ahead of the August release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, due later this Friday.
Crypto liquidations topped $1 billion on Friday for the second time this week as Bitcoin (BTC) slid below $109,000.
According to Coinglass data, 24-hour liquidations later eased to $970 million, led by Ethereum (ETH) at $312 million and Bitcoin at $244 million, after briefly spiking as high as $1.5 billion earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, Deribit data indicates more than $22 billion in crypto options are set to expire on Friday, with most of the open interest concentrated on calls. According to the exchange, this is “one of the largest” quarter-end expiries and the largest expiry of the third quarter (Q3) this year.
Bitcoin’s price traded around $108,949, off 2.3% in the past 24 hours and 12.2% below its August record high above $124,000, according to CoinGecko data. Retail sentiment on Stocktwits turned ‘bearish’ from ‘neutral’ territory, even as message volume jumped to ‘high’ levels from ‘normal’ over the same period.
However, September, which is historically a weak month for crypto, has so far seen Bitcoin lose just 1.5%.
The drop in the major altcoins was led by Solana (SOL), Binance’s BNB token (BNB), and Dogecoin (DOGE). Solana’s price dipped 5.2% in the last 24 hours, while BNB’s price was down 5% and Dogecoin slipped 4.2%.
Ethereum (ETH) and XRP (XRP) were both down more than 3.5%, and Cardano (ADA) slipped as much as 3.4% in the last 24 hours.
The pullback comes ahead of the August release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, a key U.S. inflation gauge due later on Friday. The data could shape expectations for the Federal Reserve’s final two policy meetings of the year.
Digital asset treasury (DAT) equities fell in pre-market trade. The largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, Michael Saylor-backed Strategy (MSTR), dipped around 0.16% and the largest publicly traded company with Ethereum on its balance sheet, Bitmine Immersive Technologies (BMNR), was down around 0.24%.
Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) also edged lower, down around 0.2%. Most Bitcoin miners like Marathon Holdings (MARA) slipped alongside the crypto market. MARA’s stock was down 0.25%.
However, shares of peer Riot Platforms (RIOT) rose as much as 1.85% after getting a rating upgrade to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ from JPMorgan. The firm increased its price target on the shares to $19 from $15, citing scale, power contracts, and expansion potential.
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