TL;DR
Bitcoin fell to just above $80,000 before recovering toward $81,000, while the crypto market briefly lost more than $100 billion in value.
South Korea’s Kospi plunged 8% and Japan’s Nikkei fell 5%, extending a global risk-off move after hotter U.S. inflation renewed rate concerns.
Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures positions were liquidated as volume jumped 61%, while stable open interest suggested positions were being closed rather than leverage rebuilding.
Bitcoin fell to just above $80,000 during Asian trading on Thursday as selling spread across global risk markets and the broader crypto sector lost more than $100 billion at one point. Buyers stepped in near the session low, and BTC later recovered toward $81,000. CoinMarketCap subsequently showed Bitcoin near $81,037, with a 24-hour low around $80,275. The latest decline pushed Bitcoin back toward a key psychological level while confirming that macro-driven risk aversion remains capable of spilling rapidly across crypto and equities during market stress.
Asian Selloff Deepens Risk-Off Pressure Across Crypto
Asian equities suffered the sharpest moves. South Korea’s Kospi plunged roughly 8% and triggered circuit breakers, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell about 5% as technology and semiconductor stocks extended their selloff. Nasdaq 100 futures also slipped around 1% after the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.9% in the previous U.S. session. The synchronized weakness points to a broader risk-off environment rather than evidence that one regional stock market directly caused Bitcoin’s decline. The backdrop follows Wednesday’s hot U.S. inflation report , which revived uncertainty over Federal Reserve policy and pressured rate-sensitive assets globally as well.
Altcoins absorbed heavier losses than Bitcoin, reinforcing the defensive rotation already visible across digital assets. Ether fell around 2% in the reference snapshot, while several smaller tokens declined considerably more as market-wide capitalization briefly shed over $100 billion. The relative resilience of BTC versus higher-beta tokens continues to support rising Bitcoin dominance during periods when traders reduce exposure to riskier parts of the crypto market. The pattern does not imply that Bitcoin is insulated from macro pressure, only that its losses were smaller than those recorded across much of the altcoin complex during the latest global selloff.
Derivatives data showed the downturn was amplified by forced positioning. Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures bets were liquidated over 24 hours, up sharply from about $136 million a day earlier, while futures volume climbed 61% to $252 billion. Aggregate open interest remained near $139.6 billion, suggesting elevated turnover without a broad surge in new leverage. The combination of large liquidations, heavy trading and stable open interest points to existing positions being closed or churned as volatility accelerated. Bitcoin’s implied volatility also remained above 40%, while the latest move extends the recent liquidation pressure around BTC and leaves $80,000 as the immediate level traders are watching.
