Bitcoin falls below $82,000 as technology shares drop; ether near $2,380

Bitcoin was trading at about $81,200 as of 5:54pm GMT on Thursday 22 October, down about 4% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data. Late on Wednesday it had risen to nearly $85,000, CoinDesk reported.

Ether was at about $2,378, down about 5.5% over 24 hours, as of the same time. Solana was near $103.70, down about 4.5%, and XRP near $1.31, down about 5.5%, CoinGecko data showed. Monero was one of the few large tokens to rise, up about 1% at around $613, while zcash fell about 12% to near $1,197.

CoinDesk said the declines came as technology shares fell after quarterly results from Tesla and Meta Platforms, with the Nasdaq Composite down more than 2% in New York trading. The CoinDesk DeFi index, which tracks decentralised finance tokens, fell 5.6% earlier in the day, compared with 2.5% for the CoinDesk 5 index, the outlet reported.

About $431 million of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data cited by CoinDesk. Shares of crypto-related companies also fell in early US trading, with Strategy down 5.6%, Circle 4.6% and Coinbase 4%, CoinDesk said.

US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds took in more than $1 billion over the first three days of the week, according to SoSoValue data cited by CoinDesk.

For Wednesday’s prices, see our earlier report.