$1B liquidated, $10.6B options expire, and BTC still can't find a bid 🪦

Bitcoin hovered near $59,100 on Friday after dipping below $59,000, capping a 6.4% weekly slide and leaving the largest cryptocurrency roughly 53% below its October record of $126,080. BTC changed hands in a 24-hour range of $58,189 to $60,724, putting market capitalization near $1.18 trillion. The price briefly touched its weakest level since September 2024 on Thursday, falling as low as $58,100 before rebounding toward $59,700, though it has barely moved since midnight UTC. Ether failed to mirror the bounce, slipping a further 1% to around $1,550 and extending losses to three straight days. U.S. equity futures pointed lower, with Nasdaq 100 futures down 1% and S&P 500 futures off 0.4% as the recent tech rally continued to unwind.

The selling intensified as U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs bled roughly $691 million on Thursday, their largest single-day outflow since May 27, according to Farside Investors data. CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno told Milk Road on Wednesday that annual growth in U.S. ETF Bitcoin holdings has slumped to "basically zero" for the first time since the funds launched in 2024, with the ETFs now adding to Bitcoin's supply rather than soaking it up. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt parent company Dastan, traders priced a 77% chance of Bitcoin's next move taking it to $55,000, up from 72% at the start of the week.

Friday brings an additional pressure point: roughly $10.6 billion in Bitcoin options expire on Deribit in the year's largest quarterly settlement, and with BTC trading far below the roughly $72,000 "max pain" level, about 80% of those contracts are on track to expire worthless. "The $60,000 mark remains the definitive line in the sand," said Mike McCluskey, co-founder of tokenization platform tx. A successful defense, he added, "would confirm that dip buyers maintain control," while a breach would "likely accelerate the downside in this thin liquidity environment."

The move has punished leveraged traders, with more than $1.1 billion in crypto positions liquidated over the past 24 hours and $875 million of those being longs, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin futures open interest rose for a second consecutive day to 778,000 BTC, up sharply from recent lows near 730,000 BTC, a sign traders added shorts into the Thursday selloff. ETH saw more liquidations than BTC over the past 12 hours. Open interest in ether futures has held near 14 million ETH since at least June 15, and XRP futures have shown a similar pattern, while solana's open interest has pulled back from record highs but remains elevated relative to recent months.

Aave was a rare outperformer, adding as much as 6.8% since midnight and extending a 17% weekly gain after CoinDesk reported that crypto exchange Kraken was looking to acquire a 15% stake in the DeFi company; AAVE last traded near $86.47. Ethena's ENA slid as negative funding rates undercut the token's model, while broader altcoins remained weak. The macro backdrop has tightened since new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish debut, with traders bracing for higher-for-longer rates. In a Thursday AMA, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said Bitcoin's bull case "revolves on two things," the passage of the Clarity Act and a Fed rate cut, and added that the war in Iran "has slowed the cutting cycle down," with a possible late fourth quarter or early first quarter cut if oil prices ease back toward $60.