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Morning Edition · Thursday, October 15, 2026Published at 1:13 AM EDT · New York
Bitcoin falls below $81,000 as nearly $1 billion of crypto bets are liquidated and gold and silver also drop
Ether fell about twice as much as bitcoin and accounted for close to 60% of forced closures. Silver lost about 6% on Wednesday after the US inflation report.
Exchanges forced the closure of nearly $1 billion in leveraged crypto positions as bitcoin, ether and XRP fell, CoinDesk reported. Ether accounted for close to 60% of the liquidations across the two largest tokens and fell roughly twice as much as bitcoin. Bitcoin dropped below $81,000, with an intraday low near $80,400. Most of the closed positions were bets that prices would rise.
The trigger matched the one driving equities lower. The US consumer price index rose 3.7% from a year earlier in September, strengthening expectations of another Federal Reserve rate increase. Bitcoin fell at the same time as Nasdaq chip stocks did, not as an alternative to them.
Precious metals offered no protection either. Gold fell 1.88% to about $4,083 an ounce on Wednesday, and silver fell 5.98% to about $55.63. One market tracker described gold falling below $4,100 after the inflation data. Metals that pay no interest usually lose ground when markets expect higher real interest rates, and a stronger dollar adds to that pressure.
Bitcoin mining is also changing. CoinDesk reported that Binance Pool, which once handled about 2.3% of the network, is shutting down. The computing power pointed at the pool fell from 26 exahashes per second (a measure of mining capacity) in December to about 9. Its remaining miners must move to another pool before November 10.
Part of a tracked trend
Bitcoin Trades as a Risk Asset, Not Digital Gold
At each geopolitical or inflationary stress point, bitcoin keeps trading with liquidity-sensitive risk assets rather than with monetary metals, so the digital-gold framing continues to fail exactly when investors most want it to hold.
What this means
Expectations of higher interest rates affect every asset that pays no yield, but through different mechanisms. Bitcoin and ether moved in line with leveraged technology stocks, with liquidations amplifying the decline. Gold and silver fell because higher real rates raise the cost of holding non-yielding assets. The useful distinction here is in the order of moves: gold has fallen less than crypto in this episode, consistent with the view that bitcoin trades on liquidity conditions rather than as a monetary metal. The common view holds that inflation should benefit "hard money." In practice, rising nominal rates hurt all these assets in the first stage, and the case for gold depends on a later stage, when central banks stop tightening because debt-service costs become too high. Our forward read: until the Fed signals a pause, bitcoin is likely to keep moving with the Nasdaq for weeks, and gold is likely to recover sooner because central-bank buying supports it. A bitcoin rally on a day when chip stocks fall would prove this wrong.
What to watch
- The gap between gold and bitcoin over the next several sessions. Gold recovering while bitcoin stays weak would confirm the two assets are moving apart.
- Funding rates on crypto perpetual futures. If traders rebuild leverage quickly after the liquidations, another forced sell-off becomes more likely.
Observations to monitor, not financial advice.
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- Bank of Japan board member says the central bank need not be overly cautious about raising rates
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Comments
1Oct 15, 5:13 AM
Silver fell about 3.2 times as much as gold, leaving the gold to silver ratio near 73, which fits silver trading as a leveraged industrial metal rather than as a hedge against hot inflation.