Crypto liquidations jump to $1.57 billion as Binance hack sends bitcoin, ether lower
Bitcoin fell to $76,400 after Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, suffered a $6.3 billion hack attributed to North Korean hackers.
The largest cryptocurrency slumped to an overnight low of $76,400 before recovering some of the decline. Ether ETH $2,240.22 momentarily hit $2,170 before rebounding to around $2,220. Around $3 billion of the proceeds have been frozen, with withdrawals currently paused on the exchange.
Market Impact
Crypto liquidations in futures jumped fourfold to $1.57 billion after the hack hit prices. Trading volume rose 74% to $346.1 billion, while open interest fell 3% to $136.3 billion, indicating traders closed positions and money exited futures.
BTC fell 3.1% over 24 hours while open interest fell only 1.4%, suggesting a small amount of money came in during the drop. ETH fell 4% while its open interest fell 5.8%, indicating money left.
The taker buy-sell volume ratio showed a mild tilt to selling after an even split yesterday.
Options Turn Defensive
Options traders turned defensive, with five of the six highest-volume bitcoin options being puts, all below the current price. The $74,000 put expiring Nov. 13 led the activity.
In ETH, the skew toward puts was even stronger, with the $2,000 put expiring Nov. 13 having more than twice the volume of any other ETH option. The 25-delta skew, which measures how much more puts cost than calls, has risen across all time frames in both BTC and ETH.
Token Reactions
Tokens the Binance hacker was holding and selling led the rebound, with ethena (ENA) gaining 8.4%, pepe (PEPE) rising 7.3%, uniswap (UNI) adding 4.6% and chainlink (LINK) climbing 3.7%.
Uniswap and aave had tumbled around 11% on Thursday as the attacker swapped holdings for ether. Aave froze its lending markets across 16 networks after the exploiter borrowed around $44.6 million of ether against stolen USDT.
Thorchain (RUNE) gained 6.2%, with Elliptic and onchain analyst ZachXBT tracing part of the stolen funds into Ethereum through the cross-chain protocol. LayerZero (ZRO) jumped 12%, the biggest gain among the CoinDesk 100.
Broader Market Effects
Tech stocks added to the downward pressure, with Nasdaq-100 index futures falling 2.3% after Amazon raised its capital spending forecast. Intel (INTC) slid around 25% on weak guidance.
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in $17 million on Thursday, a fourth straight day of inflows, according to Farside Investors, before the theft began. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season index fell to 45/100 from 54, and its Fear and Greed index slipped to 36/100, in 'fear,' from 43.
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