Bitcoin weekend selloff breaks $80,000 as US pulls Mideast staff
Bitcoin slipped under $80,000 for the first time in more than a month on Saturday as Washington moved personnel out of the Middle East, wiping out more than $400 million of leveraged long bets in four hours.
A bitcoin weekend selloff pushed the largest cryptocurrency below $80,000 on Saturday, Oct. 24, its weakest level in more than a month, after reports that the United States was rapidly pulling diplomats and military personnel out of posts across the Middle East. Bitcoin touched roughly $79,280 before steadying near $80,100 by early afternoon in New York, according to The Block.
What happened
The trigger was geopolitical. The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday morning that Washington was evacuating staff from embassies and bases in the region on intelligence that Iran was preparing attacks on Americans, CoinDesk said. Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, told Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, in a memo on Friday cited by CoinDesk that Iranian "lethal plotting efforts" against U.S. citizens had "reached advanced stages."
Leverage did the rest. CoinGlass data compiled by The Block show $436.44 million of crypto positions were liquidated in the four-hour window ending at 1 p.m. ET, and $404.15 million of that came from traders betting on higher prices. It was the heaviest four-hour flush of longs since Oct. 14.
Ether took a disproportionate hit. Ether liquidations reached $136.72 million against $158.45 million for bitcoin, even though ether is worth only about 18% as much as bitcoin by market value. XRP and solana lost 3% to 4%, CoinDesk reported.
Why it matters
Fund flows offered no cushion. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost $137.94 million on Friday after $635.49 million of outflows on Thursday, The Block calculated from SoSoValue data, leaving the week only $304.73 million positive after a strong start. We flagged on Friday that the price was trading under the average ETF cost basis, which turns rallies into exit points for underwater holders.
Big traders are stepping back as well. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes wrote on X early Saturday that he had closed the directional book at his family office, Maelstrom, taking profits on ETH, ENA and UNI. "I think we gotta go down to go up," he wrote, adding that conditions looked "a bit dicey" in "macro and geopolitical land."
The bitcoin weekend selloff also shows how thin weekend liquidity amplifies headline risk. Futures open interest fell 2.2% to $140.10 billion over 24 hours, and total liquidations over that period reached $815.26 million, The Block said. The pattern echoes the round trip to $85,000 earlier in the week, when leverage built quickly and unwound just as fast.
What's next
President Trump has threatened to resume strikes on Iran after the early-November midterms, saying at a Florida rally that "we may do another little 'Epic Fury,'" CoinDesk reported. Any confirmation of attacks or further evacuations would land first in crypto, the only major market trading through the weekend.
The next scheduled test is the Federal Reserve decision on Oct. 28, where Polymarket traders put the chance of no change at 96% as of 08:21 MSK on Oct. 25. Monday's ETF flow data will show whether the bitcoin weekend selloff spreads to regulated funds. The liquidation breakdown is in The Block's report.
The call
We say bitcoin will not trade at or below $77,500 at any point in October. Polymarket's "Will Bitcoin dip to $77,500 in October?" market priced that outcome at 65% at 08:21 MSK on Oct. 25, and the weekend low was about $79,280, according to The Block, which leaves a cushion of nearly $1,800 with a week of trading left in the month.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Calls are editorial forecasts, logged with market odds at the time of publication and kept on the record.