The cryptocurrency market suffered a broad slump over the past weekend, with Bitcoin briefly falling to $63,311, its lowest level since August 17. As of publication on November 15 Beijing time, Bitcoin had broken below the $63,000 mark, down nearly 8% on the day; Ethereum was down more than 10%, Solana more than 11%, and both BNB and XRP fell more than 9%.
The sharp swings set off a cascade of liquidations. According to CoinGlass, 318,700 traders were liquidated across the network in the past 24 hours, with total liquidations exceeding $1.9 billion, of which long positions accounted for more than 90%. In the 24 hours to 7 a.m. Singapore time on Sunday alone, major exchanges recorded about $1.9 billion in crypto liquidations, with Bitcoin positions accounting for $684 million and Ethereum $466 million. In the prior trading session, Bitcoin's decline had already triggered the liquidation of about $1.3 billion in crypto long positions.
Rich Rosenblum, co-founder of crypto market maker GSR, believes the latest decline is driven more by technical factors. He noted that Bitcoin had previously broken below its 200-day moving average around $73,000, triggering a wave of forced liquidations and prompting investors to build new short positions. In his view, Bitcoin may be nearing a technical support bottom: "Over the past year, Bitcoin has repeatedly found support around or slightly below current levels, and the market is approaching the lower edge of its long-term trend channel."
Since October 21, Bitcoin has fallen about 25% in cumulative terms; its year-to-date low was 57,742 on July 1. Large liquidation events—in which more than $500 million of Bitcoin positions are wiped out within 24 hours—are increasingly becoming a regular feature of the market, repeatedly flushing out leveraged traders.
The selloff was not driven by a single factor. Crypto has been under sustained pressure in recent weeks from a combination of forces: expectations that US interest rates will remain elevated for longer, large outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs, risk-off sentiment as the AI-themed stock rally cools, and fallout from the massive Binance hack. Data showed that US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of nearly $3 billion between October 30 and November 13.
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, said on November 14 that as operations gradually return to normal it aims to reopen withdrawals for all remaining networks and assets by next weekend. The exchange had previously restored withdrawals in phases and said it had covered 95% of the more than $6 billion in tokens stolen from the platform. The heist, which experts call the largest crypto theft in history, has highlighted the vulnerability of digital assets to attack and raised questions about how the hack will affect Binance. Binance has pledged to fully compensate customers.
There was also a shake-up at the management level. Binance CFO Kaiser Ng departed just over a week after the hack, ending more than five years at the company to pursue new opportunities. Longtime finance executive Justin Yek, previously vice president of finance at Airwallex, has taken over the role.
From a market perspective, the crash has once again exposed the fragility of highly leveraged trading in crypto. Analysts noted that with tight rate expectations, continued ETF outflows and cooling risk appetite, market sentiment will be difficult to repair meaningfully in the near term, and the progress of Binance's post-hack remediation will be a key variable in watching the restoration of trust in the exchange.
Note: Liquidation data comes from CoinGlass, covering the 24 hours before publication; ETF outflow data covers October 30 to November 13.
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