Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin Nears June Low as $1.4B in Liquidations Rock Altcoins

The crypto market suffered a sell-off on Tuesday with bitcoin BTC$68,324.61 approaching its lowest level since June and ether ETH$1,985.50 trading at $3,480, the least since August.

The selling pressure led to around $1.4 billion in liquidations across derivatives exchanges, which at press time are performing better than they did in October, when Binance's auto-deleveraging engine caused havoc by liquidating a large number of traders.

One of the catalysts for the sell-off is dollar strength, with the DXY index hitting 100 for the first time since July after rallying off 96.2 in September.

The dollar is up as analysts suggest the Federal Reserve will slow its rate-cutting cycle. This has led to a bearish reversal in risk assets like bitcoin and the wider crypto market.

Derivatives Positioning

By Omkar Godbole

• Volmex's Bitcoin Volatility Index, BVIV, which represents the 30-day implied, or expected, price turbulence, is rising, following the golden cross of its 50- and 200-day moving averages.
• BTC's spot price has developed a negative correlation with volatility over the past year, which means further gains in BVIV could be marked by price weakness.
• Positioning in ZEC remains elevated, with open interest (OI) near lifetime highs of around 1.59 million ZEC. However, funding rates have flipped bearish, a sign that some traders are shorting futures, possibly against long spot positions.
• On the CME, futures tied to BTC and ETH continue to see diverging trends, with activity mostly concentrated in ether futures, where OI remains near record highs.
• On Deribit, BTC options show a bias for puts across all time frames, a sign of persistent downside concerns. Ether options show bullishness following the February 2026 expiry.
• OTC flows over Paradigm featured demand for the Nov. 7 expiry ether put at the $3,500 strike.

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• The altcoin market suffered a bruising Asia session with several tokens falling by more than 15%, resulting in a $1.37 billion wave of liquidations, according to CoinGlass.
• HyperLiquid rival aster ASTER$0.7035 led the decline, sliding 18% to $0.88. Intriguingly, that's below the price paid by Binance founder CZ, who announced a $1.8 million purchase at $0.90 over the weekend.
• "Every time I buy coins, I get stuck in a losing position, 100% record," CZ wrote on X Tuesday.
• Numerous tokens including XRP XRP$1.4521 now find themselves back at critical levels of support that led to a bounce two weeks ago, although it's worth noting that the likes of solana SOL$86.58 and BNB BNB$611.55 have fallen to fresh lows.
• One sector that has outperformed the wider market has been privacy coins, with monero XMR$337.54 and zcash ZEC$289.05 both still in the green for the month.
• Tuesday also saw exceptional rallies in decred DCR$23.76 and dash DASH$37.90, two tokens considered "dino coins" by some as they were launched in 2017 and 2014 respectively. Both tokens have privacy features and appear to be riding the coattails of XMR and ZEC.
• DCR is up by 146% while DASH is up by 65% on significant volume, demonstrating that traders may be rotating away from the weaker wider market.