Bitcoin drops to two-week low as $300 million in longs are liquidated

Bitcoin fell below $67,000 and ether dropped toward $2,000 as equities weakened, oil topped $100 and leveraged longs unwound, signaling fragile sentiment.

What to know:

• Nearly $300 million in long liquidations vs. $50 million shorts highlights crowded bullish positioning unwinding across crypto futures.
• Rising oil prices and Iran war fears drive risk-off mood, dragging crypto alongside Nasdaq futures now ~10% below January highs.
• Altcoins underperform as shorting interest builds (e.g., XRP, SHIB), while ONDO stands out with gains tied to ETF tokenization news.

The crypto market tumbled to the lowest levels in more than two weeks, with bitcoin BTC$66,678.83 dropping below $67,000 and ether (ETH) closing in on $2,000. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) lost 2.2% since midnight UTC, reaching its lowest since March 9.

The fall coincided with a drop in U.S. equities. Nasdaq 100 futures are now trading at 23,760, 10% below this year's high from January.

The risk-off atmosphere was spurred by rising oil prices and fears that the war in Iran would not de-escalate as quickly as many had hoped. Oil remains above $100 per barrel, stoking inflation concerns.

Sections of the altcoin market were harder hit on Friday, with the likes of ETHFI losing 6% since midnight. WLD, WIF, SEI and FET all lost between 3.6% and 4.7%.

Derivatives positioning

• Long crypto futures bets, or bullish positions on market direction, bore the brunt of liquidations over the past 24 hours, with nearly $300 million liquidated, compared with just $50 million in short positions.
• That's the fifth time in 10 days the longs have neared that level of punishment, an indication traders were predominantly positioned for the Iran war to translate into a price rally that has not materialized.
• XRP's price fell over 2.5% in 24 hours, while open interest in futures has increased by 2% to 1.95 billion XRP, the most since Feb. 2.
• That combination represents renewed investor interest in shorting the falling market. Negative cumulative volume delta and sub-zero funding rates suggest the same.
• Futures tied to bitcoin, solana, dogecoin and BNB displayed an XRP-like bearish profile.
• Memecoin SHIB has the largest negative open-interest–adjusted cumulative volume delta among major tokens, signaling aggressive derisking, or shorting, by traders.
• Canton Network's CC token stood out with positive funding rates and an increase in futures OI, both signaling growing demand for bullish exposure.
• Bitcoin and ether’s 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, continued to drop despite weak spot prices, suggesting that traders aren't panicking yet and do not anticipate a turbulent selloff.
• On Deribit, bitcoin options worth over $15 billion expired early Friday. So, the supposed expiry-related price magnet of $75,000 is no longer valid, which opens doors for deeper declines amid a worsening macro outlook.
• Bitcoin and ether puts are again trading at 6 to 8 volatility premium to calls across all expirations, risk reversal shows. It indicates sticky demand for downside protection.

Token talk

• The altcoin market showed its fragility again on Friday, failing to cling on to key levels of support in a low-liquidity trading environment.
• The CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) was the worst-performing benchmark, tumbling by 2.3% while the bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 20 (CD20) dropped 1.2%.
• One token that bucked the bearish trend was ONDO, which rose after Ondo Finance, an asset management company, said it agreed to tokenize five Franklin Templeton exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and bring them to the Ondo Chain.
• The token is up by more than 8% in the past 24 hours, although it gave back some of those gains since midnight UTC.
• The average relative strength index (RSI) across all crypto tokens remains neutral despite the selloff, suggesting further declines are likely on Friday.

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