The selloff followed two days of heavy withdrawals from U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Approximately $773 million left the products on Thursday and Friday after more than $1 billion flowed in during the first three sessions of the week.
The combination points to a market losing leverage and short-term institutional momentum simultaneously. It does not, however, establish that ETF redemptions caused Saturday’s liquidation wave.
How Quickly Did Bitcoin Longs Unwind?
Most of the forced selling was concentrated into two short periods. Approximately $208.21 million of long positions were liquidated during a 15-minute window beginning at 10:15 a.m. ET, followed by another $131.17 million beginning at 11:15 a.m.
Between 8 a.m. and noon ET, long liquidations totaled $401.91 million, the largest four-hour wipeout since October 14. Across the preceding 24 hours, total crypto liquidations reached approximately $815 million and affected more than 200,000 traders.
Crypto futures open interest declined 2.2% to approximately $140.1 billion over the same period. That reduction matters because liquidation events remove leveraged exposure rather than simply transferring positions between bullish and bearish traders.
The market had already experienced another substantial leverage reset earlier in October. FinanceFeeds reported $771 million in liquidations when Bitcoin previously fell through $82,000, illustrating how repeatedly crowded long positioning has amplified relatively modest spot-price declines.
Investor Takeaway
The 2.2% drop in futures open interest shows that Saturday’s decline removed leverage from the market, reducing some immediate liquidation pressure but not establishing that the price correction is finished.
Why Were Ether Liquidations So Large?
Ether generated $136.72 million of four-hour liquidations, compared with $158.45 million for Bitcoin, even though Ether’s market capitalization is less than one-fifth of Bitcoin’s.
Long positions represented 92.7% of Ether liquidations and 94.2% of Bitcoin’s. The largest individual liquidation recorded over the preceding 24 hours was an $11.85 million ETH-USDT long on Binance.
The disproportionate Ether losses suggest that leverage, rather than market capitalization alone, determined where the selloff inflicted the most damage. Ether was also under pressure in the spot market, trading near $2,314 during the liquidation period.
Institutional flows have been weaker for Ether as well. FinanceFeeds recently reported that Ether fell below $2,400 as ETF withdrawals accumulated, with the products experiencing sustained redemptions through October.
Are Bitcoin ETF Investors Turning Bearish?
The ETF data are more mixed than the two latest sessions suggest.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost approximately $635.5 million on Thursday and another $137.9 million on Friday. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for about $110.3 million of Friday’s withdrawals, while Fidelity’s FBTC lost roughly $31.8 million.
However, those redemptions followed approximately $1.075 billion of inflows between Monday and Wednesday. FinanceFeeds’ latest weekly calculation showed Bitcoin ETFs still finished the week with roughly $301 million in net inflows.
The distinction is important. Thursday and Friday represented a rapid reversal in institutional flow momentum, but not yet a wholesale weekly withdrawal from Bitcoin funds. ETF creations and redemptions also do not prove an equivalent amount of Bitcoin was immediately bought or sold on spot exchanges.
Investor Takeaway
The ETF picture is weakening at the margin rather than uniformly bearish: two heavy outflow sessions reversed most of the week’s earlier demand, but the five-day total remained positive.
What Does Arthur Hayes’ Exit Tell the Market?
Risk appetite also weakened among some prominent crypto investors. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said Saturday that Maelstrom, his family office, had closed its directional trading book and taken profits on Ether, Ethena, Uniswap and other tokens.
Hayes cited macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty and said he expected markets to move lower before recovering. His decision is notable because he has previously moved quickly between bullish and defensive positioning. FinanceFeeds reported in June that Hayes exited HYPE and NEAR positions amid macro and liquidity concerns.
His latest exit should not be treated as evidence that his concerns caused Bitcoin’s decline or that further losses are inevitable. It instead adds another measure of declining short-term risk appetite alongside falling futures open interest and the late-week ETF reversal.
For Bitcoin, the next test is whether spot demand can stabilize around $80,000 after leverage has been reduced. If ETF flows remain negative when U.S. markets reopen, Saturday’s liquidation reset would be accompanied by a more persistent deterioration in institutional demand. A return to ETF inflows would instead leave the weekend move looking more like another derivatives-driven flush than a decisive change in the broader Bitcoin allocation trend.
