Bitcoin, Ethereum Prices Suddenly Plunge as Liquidations Top $175 Million

By Andrew Hayward and Liz Napolitano

The prices of top cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum suddenly fell Thursday afternoon, prompting a fresh wave of liquidations of crypto positions—mostly long positions—as the market broadly turned red.

Bitcoin fell by nearly 3% in just over an hour to a current price of $57,787 as of this writing, while Ethereum dipped even more to a current price of $2,547 per data from CoinGecko. Other top coins like Solana and Dogecoin have fallen even harder during the same span.

Liquidations over the past 24 hours have topped $176 million as a result of market volatility, per data from Coinglass, with $98 million worth of that coming within the last four hours. Ethereum is leading the bleeding there, with over $59 million worth of liquidated positions in the last day, followed by Bitcoin with about $50 million.

There is no single, obvious reason for the swift declines, though it may be due to cascading liquidations as the damage ripples across the crypto markets. Prices have only dipped further since this story was originally published, with 24-hour liquidations only rising as a result.

Bitcoin and Ethereum had been volatile earlier Thursday following the latest consumer price index (CPI) report on Wednesday, though the latest dip doesn't appear to be tied to macroeconomic factors. After all, stock prices are soaring Thursday, apparently unfazed by any macro factors—but crypto prices are falling.

U.S. inflation fell to 2.9% in July, marking the country's lowest annual inflation rate since 2021. Meanwhile, several analysts are predicting the Federal Reserve will introduce “aggressive” interest rate cuts starting in September, stimulating the U.S. economy, Morningstar chief U.S. economist Preston Caldwell said Thursday in a statement. 

U.S. markets have also performed strongly of late, with the Nasdaq Composite up 2.3% in the past 24 hours, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained roughly 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.

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