Bitcoin Slips Under $90K as $500M in Longs Unwind; Ethereum, XRP Fall While Stocks Climb

Crypto is bleeding while equities grind higher—classic decoupling driven by leverage, not macro. Bitcoin fell back below $90,000 on Friday, tagging $88,420 before rebounding to $89,215, off more than 3% over 24 hours after failing to hold above $92,000. It’s the second sharp break in a week: BTC slipped under $85,000 on Monday before snapping back, continuing a choppy stretch that included a seven-month low near $81,000 in late November. That downswing follows October’s all-time high at $126,080, leaving Bitcoin almost 30% lower since the peak.

Altcoins extended the move. Ethereum slid over 4% to $3,021, XRP fell 4% to $2.03, Solana dropped nearly 7% to $132, and Dogecoin retreated about 7% to below $0.14. The derivatives tape tells the story: more than $493 million in crypto positions were liquidated over the last day after briefly topping $500 million, per market-wide trackers. Bitcoin led with roughly $191 million in forced unwinds. Longs accounted for about $412 million of the total—evidence of crowded bullish positioning that simply ran out of runway.

Here’s the core dynamic that matters: a leverage-led feedback loop independent of the broader risk tone. U.S. stocks are slightly green, with the S&P 500 inching toward another record as traders increasingly price in a third interest rate cut this year at next week’s FOMC meeting. If macro were in the driver’s seat, crypto would typically catch a bid. Instead, the perpetual-futures market is dictating spot: elevated positioning and thin liquidity create a convex tape where incremental selling forces cascading liquidations, which pull spot lower, which in turn pushes more levered longs into margin calls. It’s not about the headline—it’s about the plumbing.

You can see the spillover into crypto-equity beta. Miners—effectively operating leverage to BTC—were hit hardest: CleanSpark (CLSK) fell about 8%, while Bitfarms (BITF) and Hive Digital (HIVE) each dropped roughly 5%. Broker and software proxies fared better but still slipped, with Coinbase (COIN) down less than 1%, and MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Robinhood (HOOD) lower by about 3%.

Pragmatically, this setup says more about position risk than fundamental demand. After a fresh ATH in October and subsequent drawdowns, traders often try to buy the dip with high leverage. When liquidity thins and upside momentum stalls, funding and basis can’t support the stack, and forced deleveraging becomes the primary flow. That is why the tape can break even as equities enjoy a dovish-rate backdrop.

What to watch next: - Positioning reset: A cleaner base typically forms after open interest and funding normalize and liquidations slow. - Spot-led demand: Sustainable reversals tend to start with spot bids, not perps chasing. - Crypto equity divergence: Miners versus exchanges can hint at whether the move is revenue-driven (hash-price stress) or flow-driven (trading volumes, custody, and net inflows).

The psychology is straightforward: traders crowd the same side of the boat, expect the macro tide to lift everything, and ignore the microstructure until it bites. In this market, the engine room—perpetuals, margin, and liquidation thresholds—often matters more than the view from the deck.