A stronger dollar and falling precious metals accompanied a crypto rout that drove bitcoin to its lowest since November, triggered $1.8 billion in liquidations, and saw bitcoin dominance drop as traders rotated into altcoins.
Bitcoin fell 2.7% since midnight UTC to $82,746.90 and ether dropped 3.5% to $2,742.63, extending Thursday’s selloff and sending bitcoin to its lowest since November. A firmer dollar (DXY +0.57%) and softer U.S. equity futures accompanied the move amid market expectations that Kevin Warsh could become the next Federal Reserve chair. Precious metals tumbled, with silver down 20% from Thursday’s $121 record to $96 and gold back below $5,000 after an 11% slide from Wednesday’s $5,600 high. Crypto liquidations totaled about $1.8 billion in 24 hours as leverage was flushed; open interest (OI) fell across major coins, while DOGE’s OI rose 2%, consistent with shorting the dip. Funding rates for BTC, ETH, XRP and others turned negative, and bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility (BVIV) jumped to 47% from 40%; Deribit put options grew pricier than calls, with BTC put spreads and an ETH put butterfly appearing in block flows. Bitcoin dominance slipped to 58.73% as traders rotated into altcoins; the CoinDesk 20 Index is down 6.6% year to date versus a 2.28% decline for the altcoin-heavy CoinDesk 80.