Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP Dive as Liquidations Hit $500 Million—While Stocks Rise

Crypto prices fell sharply again Friday, with Bitcoin diving below the $90,000 mark while Ethereum flirted with a drop below the $3,000 mark—all while crypto liquidations piled up across the board.

Bitcoin fell to $88,420 on Friday morning and was recently trading at $89,215, marking a more than 3% drop over the last 24 hours as the leading cryptocurrency dove from a price above the $92,000 level.

It’s the second major plunge for Bitcoin over the last week, after the coin plummeted below the $85,000 mark on Monday before sharply rebounding the following day.

That continues a trend of Bitcoin being especially volatile in recent weeks, including diving to a seven-month low of about $81,000 in late November. That slump came following a new all-time high mark for Bitcoin of $126,080, set in early October. Bitcoin is now down almost 30% since setting that record.

As is often the case, other major altcoins are showing sharper losses on the day. Ethereum is down more than 4% to a recent price of $3,021, while XRP is down 4% to $2.03. Solana has dropped nearly 7% to $132, while Dogecoin is similarly down about 7% to a price below $0.14.

Liquidations over the last day have tallied more than $493 million, as of this writing, according to data from CoinGlass, after sitting right at the $500 million mark not long ago. Bitcoin leads the carnage with $191 million worth of liquidations, and the vast majority—$412 million worth—of the total liquidations were long positions, or bets that an asset’s price will increase.

Why crypto prices are falling again isn’t immediately obvious, particularly since major stock market indices are slightly green on the day, with the S&P 500 nearing another all-time high as traders increasingly expect a third interest rate cut for this year at next week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

Crypto-centric stocks, however, are falling alongside digital assets, with Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) down 8% with others like Bitfarms (BITF) and Hive Digital (HIVE) both falling about 5% on the day. Coinbase (COIN) has fallen less than 1% on the day, with Strategy (MSTR) and Robinhood (HOOD) both showing roughly 3% drops.