Crypto markets saw a sharp sell-off early on Oct. 30 Taipei time, with Bitcoin briefly falling toward $78,000 and Ether losing the $2,250 level. BlockTempo said the move may have been hit by unconfirmed chatter that Binance had been hacked, while total liquidations across crypto futures climbed to about $659 million, most of them long positions.
Liquidation tracker Swolecharts showed that as of around 21:15 UTC on Oct. 29, total crypto futures liquidations stood at about $659 million. Longs made up about $571 million of that figure, or nearly 87%, while shorts accounted for about $88 million.
At the same time, key round-number levels gave way. Bitcoin dropped quickly from around $80,800 and briefly traded down to roughly $78,500 to $78,000. Ether fell below about $2,250 and touched roughly $2,240. The report said the synchronized decline in the two largest cryptocurrencies put bullish futures positions under immediate pressure, forcing short-term traders to cut exposure and amplifying volatility through a chain of price declines, liquidations, and renewed selling.
Bitcoin and Ether both broke key levels
According to CoinGecko prices cited in the report, Bitcoin was trading at about $79,100, with a 24-hour low near $78,475 and a high near $81,840, for a decline of about 2.6% to 2.7%. Community trading screens also showed an hourly move from around $80,849 down to about $78,297, bringing the token close to the $78,000 mark.
Ether was quoted at about $2,260, with a 24-hour low near $2,243 and a high near $2,373, down about 4%. Its price had already broken below the $2,250 round number and slipped to around $2,240.
About $659 million liquidated across the market, with longs making up nearly 90%
Based on Swolecharts’ aggregation of public exchange liquidation feeds, described as a lower-bound estimate, BTC liquidations reached about $207 million and ETH liquidations came to about $192 million. Other altcoins also saw scattered liquidations. The largest single liquidation was a Binance BTC long worth about $11.1 million, executed at around $79,255 at about 20:42 UTC.
CryptoBriefing separately said the market saw about $590 million in long liquidations within roughly one hour, and placed the sudden drop alongside unconfirmed rumors of a Binance hack. The report said that helps explain why a spot decline of only about 2% to 4% was enough to trigger a liquidation wave measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.
From a positioning standpoint, the concentration of liquidations in long positions suggested that bullish leverage had built up before the drop. Once key support levels were broken, automatic liquidation engines added more selling pressure.
Large hot wallet transfers at Binance remain unconfirmed as a hack
One backdrop to the market reaction was on-chain monitoring and social media posts claiming Binance may have been compromised. According to BeInCrypto, wallets labeled Binance 14 and other hot wallets saw transfers worth roughly $2 billion to $2.5 billion moved to new addresses, and the originating trail had at one point shown funding from Tornado Cash. Tree News and Spreek also issued on-chain alerts.
As of the time of writing, Binance had not said whether the transfers were part of routine maintenance, address rotation, or theft. The report noted that while the on-chain pattern looked suspicious, the sweep activity alone was not enough to classify the event as a confirmed hack, leaving the market to treat it as unconfirmed or suspected for now.
For traders, the rumor itself was enough to lift demand for defensive positioning. Any security question around a major exchange can quickly show up in liquidity conditions and leveraged positions, which the report described as an important backdrop to the speed and intensity of the morning sell-off.
