Altcoins lead crypto declines as Asian stocks drop; bitcoin little changed since midnight

Bitcoin BTC$80,791.18 is trading at $81,200, down around 0.5% since midnight UTC after trimming a 1% loss from earlier in the session, with buyers stepping in just above $80,000 at around 02:30 UTC, close to the Oct. 8 low of about $80,300.

Asian equities set the tone, with South Korea’s Kospi plunging 8% and triggering circuit breakers while Nasdaq 100 index futures slid about 1%, extending Wednesday’s 1.9% drop in the Nasdaq Composite.

Altcoins took the heavier losses, with ether ETH$2,371.36 down 2.0% near $2,370. The CoinDesk 80 (CD80) slid by 2.2% while the bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 5 (CD5) lost around 0.7%.

The bigger moves were apparent across lower market cap tokens, with pump.fun PUMP$0.004311 falling by 9.4% as the CoinDesk Memecoin Index lost 4.0%, leaving all but six CD100 members lower.

The odds of an October Federal Reserve interest-rate increase jumped to nearly 47% on CME’s FedWatch after Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected inflation report, from about 22% beforehand. It’s now back to roughly 26%, which leaves Treasury yields and hike pricing as the next signals heading into the U.S. open.

• Liquidations jumped to nearly $1 billion after a hot inflation print: Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures bets were liquidated over 24 hours as the market wilted after Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation report, up from about $136 million a day earlier. The spike shows how crowded positioning was heading into the data.
• Ether took a heavier hit than bitcoin: ETH saw more liquidations than bitcoin. Longs worth $200 million were liquidated in ether, significantly more than the $115 million in bitcoin. The difference points to heavier long leverage in ether.
• Silver outranked a top privacy coin on liquidations: XAG (silver) perpetual futures have seen more liquidations than zcash (ZEC), one of the top privacy coins in a sign of the growing popularity of TradFi assets on crypto platforms.
• Trading surged while open interest held steady: 24-hour crypto futures volume is $252 billion, up 61% over the period, while open interest (OI) is largely unchanged at $139.6 billion. That means the activity was mostly existing positions being closed or churned, not a big new leverage build. The taker long/short volume ratio is again skewed bearish, with shorts accounting for 51.67% of the flow, little changed from 52% a day earlier.
• Traders are adding to bitcoin positions as the price falls: BTC’s spot price is down over 2% in 24 hours, but notional futures OI is up 1.6%. Because OI is measured in dollars, that implies the number of contracts rose by roughly 3.7%, so net new capital is entering during the drop. The 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative, alongside negative readings for most coins, so the new money looks more like shorts. OI doesn’t show direction, however. BTC’s perpetual funding rate is still positive, so longs are still paying to hold.
• Ether and solana show a similar setup: ETH and SOL futures OI have held largely steady despite bigger spot price drops than bitcoin. Flat dollar OI amid falling prices implies the number of contracts rose by about the size of the price drop, another sign of fresh positions. Both also have negative CVDs and still-positive funding rates.
• DOGE and NEAR are being de-risked: Their OI drops are far bigger than their spot price declines, which means traders are closing positions and capital is leaving, not just marking down.
• Bitcoin’s implied volatility is holding above 40%: The BVIV index is just above 40% for the second straight day, up from recent lows near 34%. The increase shows renewed demand for options, which remain well short of the panic highs seen in February and June. Ether’s volatility index shows a similar pattern.
• Options flow is two-way in bitcoin and defensive in ether: On Deribit, BTC calls at the $90K and $86K strikes top the 24-hour options volume rankings, while the other three in the top five are puts. Calls above the market point to bets on a rebound, and the puts point to hedging. In ETH’s case, puts top the list.

• Pump.fun PUMP$0.004311, the Solana memecoin launchpad token, fell 9.4%, the steepest loss in the CD100, with the broader Solana ecosystem also taking a hit. Jito JTO$0.4551 lost 6.2% and jupiter (JUP) 6.1%, while solana (SOL) slipped only 1.1% to about $103.
• Pyth network PYTH$0.08335, an oracle token, rose 2.8%, extending a rally that began Oct. 8 after its DAO voted to direct all product revenue into monthly buybacks. CoinMarketCap shows about $96 million of PYTH volume over 24 hours, a 67% increase on the previous 24-hour period.
• Starknet STRK$0.07634 gained 11%, rebounding after a 17% slide on Oct. 13. It remains 278% higher than its yearly low of $0.021 on Aug. 16.
• Canton CC$0.1063, the institutional blockchain token, fell 7.3%, optimism OP$0.1288 lost 7.0% and aerodrome (AERO) dropped 6.4%, as a lack of altcoin liquidity continues to weigh on the sector.
• Larger names held up better, with tron TRX$0.3302 little changed, monero (XMR) down 0.55% and hyperliquid (HYPE) down 0.96% to about $80.

UPDATE (Oct. 15, 13:45 UTC): Rewrites headline.