Why Bitcoin Fell Below $80K: ETF Outflows, Liquidations and the Fed

Bitcoin traded below $80,000 on Saturday, October 24, and again during the following two days, but it did not stay there throughout. By 11:05 UTC on Monday, October 26, Binance’s published BTC/USD reference price was $80,218.43. I see three overlapping pressures: weaker ETF demand, forced closures of leveraged longs and a risk-off backdrop ahead of the Federal Reserve. None is a proven single trigger.

Market-data note (October 26, 2026): Source snapshots were checked through 2026-10-26 11:18 UTC. The latest quoted Bitcoin price used below was timestamped 11:05 UTC: $80,218.43, as displayed by Binance at that time. The historical event window is October 22–26, 2026. Completed U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF flow data in this analysis end on Friday, October 23; the October 26 U.S. session had not closed at the cutoff. Historical price candles below use the Binance BTC/USDT market as compiled by ChartExchange and are distinct from Binance’s BTC/USD reference quote. Prices change continuously.

What actually happened around $80,000?

The first thing I would separate is a multi-day decline from the moments Bitcoin actually crossed $80,000. On October 22, the Binance BTC/USDT market opened the UTC day around 84,093 USDT and fell as low as 80,940 USDT. October 23 remained above 80,000 on that market. Saturday, October 24, was the clear intraday break: Bitcoin traded as low as 79,220.74 USDT, then ended the UTC day back near 80,888 USDT.

Source: ChartExchange, Binance BTC/USDT historical daily data (UTC). BTC/USDT figures are in USDT, not a consolidated BTC/USD index. October 26 is an incomplete trading day; that day’s low may change.

On Saturday, The Block reported a Bitcoin price around $79,280 at 15:20 UTC, followed by a rebound to about $80,138 at 17:00 UTC. The Binance BTC/USDT daily record also shows a separate brief dip under $80,000 on Sunday. On Monday, a Bloomberg report republished by The Edge described another retreat to below $79,300 during Asian trading before Bitcoin recovered toward $80,000.

Those Monday and Saturday lows are not interchangeable. They refer to different dates and price sources. Nor does a trade below $80,000 prove that a daily candle closed below it. On the Binance BTC/USDT series above, both Saturday and Sunday closed back above $80,000. This is why my preferred description is repeated intraday breaks, not one uninterrupted collapse.

What the $773.5 million in Bitcoin ETF outflows really shows

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs had an important demand reversal. The Farside Investors fund-by-fund table showed $635.6 million in net outflows on Thursday, October 22, followed by $137.9 million on Friday, October 23. Added together, that is $773.5 million across two U.S. trading sessions. The roughly $636 million headline refers to one day, not an extra amount to add on top of $773.5 million.

Source: Farside Investors, checked October 26. Figures are US$ millions, rounded to one decimal, and may be revised. The dashboard did not explicitly label every row final.

The three preceding sessions brought in $1,074.7 million, which means that—even after the two negative days—the five-session balance was positive by $301.2 million. That does not erase the significance of Thursday and Friday’s reversal, but it changes the meaning of claims that money simply fled the funds all week. BlackRock’s IBIT alone recorded a $254.1 million net outflow on October 22, while Fidelity’s FBTC had $217.5 million, according to the same fund-level table.

I also want to keep net fund flows separate from three other things: gross redemptions, the volume of ETF shares changing hands and changes in assets under management. A Bitcoin price decline reduces the dollar value of an ETF’s holdings even if no shares are redeemed. Investors in these products are not exclusively institutions, either. And a fund’s reported daily net outflow does not identify the minute at which an equivalent quantity of Bitcoin changed hands on a spot exchange.

Most importantly for this chronology, U.S. ETF shares did not have a normal trading session on Saturday or Sunday. Thursday and Friday’s recorded flows help establish the demand backdrop; they should not be described as fresh weekend ETF redemptions. For the difference between spot and futures-based products, see the Cryptolinks Bitcoin and crypto ETF guide.

How leveraged long liquidations made a decline sharper

This part of the story has a more directly observable short-term mechanism. A leveraged long position bets on a rising price using borrowed exposure. When the market falls far enough, the exchange may forcibly close the position because the trader no longer meets maintenance-margin requirements. Those closures can add sell-side pressure into an already falling market.

During the four hours ending 17:00 UTC on Saturday, October 24, The Block reported a CoinGlass snapshot of $436.44 million in liquidations across tracked cryptocurrency markets, including $404.15 million in longs. The breakdown included $158.45 million in Bitcoin positions and $136.72 million in Ether positions, combining long and short liquidations for each asset. That is not $404 million of Bitcoin long liquidations.

The same report described approximately $208.21 million of market-wide long liquidations in a 15-minute interval beginning around 14:15 UTC, as Bitcoin fell from roughly $80,640 toward $80,100. Bitcoin later touched about $79,280 before rebounding. The sequence is consistent with liquidations amplifying a decline once it was underway; it does not identify who placed the first sell order.

The report also gave a separate, overlapping 24-hour crypto-wide total of $815.26 million and said dollar-denominated crypto futures open interest fell 2.2% to $140.10 billion at that snapshot. I would not add the four-hour figure to the 24-hour figure. Nor would I treat the open-interest change as pure position closures: a fall in underlying prices can lower the dollar value of outstanding contracts. An archived, fully reconciled exchange-by-exchange CoinGlass extract for those exact windows was not available from its current public dashboard, so the exchange coverage is limited to what the reporting identifies.

For more background on how margin, funding and liquidations work, see the Cryptolinks crypto futures and derivatives section and our earlier coverage of Bitcoin’s October 7 long-liquidation event.

Did AI-stock weakness cause Bitcoin to fall?

There is evidence of a real technology-equity selloff, but the wording matters. Reuters reported on October 23 that, in the Thursday, October 22 U.S. cash-equity session, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6%, Meta declined about 7% and Nvidia lost about 4%. Investor concern about financing and returns on heavy AI infrastructure spending was part of that coverage. The Bloomberg report on Monday also pointed to weakness in Asian technology shares and questioned enthusiasm for the AI trade.

I think the plausible connection is risk appetite: when investors cut exposure to crowded or volatile investments, Bitcoin can suffer alongside growth stocks. But U.S. cash equities were closed during Saturday’s liquidation burst, so they were not simultaneously trading down alongside those crypto positions. The evidence supports a less welcoming macro environment, not a demonstrated causal chain from an AI stock sale to a Bitcoin sell order.

Where the Federal Reserve fits

The Federal Reserve’s official calendar schedules its next policy meeting for October 27–28, 2026, with the decision due Wednesday, October 28. At the time of this article, the latest completed decision was the September 16 statement, which set the federal funds target range at 3.75%–4.00%.

Market coverage described traders as preparing for a possible unchanged decision, but I could not independently verify a timestamped, meeting-specific probability from the CME FedWatch tool. I therefore would not attach a precise percentage to that expectation. Futures-derived odds describe market pricing, not a commitment by the Fed, and an unchanged rate could still be followed by a market reaction to the policy statement or press conference.

My reading is that Fed uncertainty gave traders another reason to be careful with leverage; it is not evidence that a particular trader sold Bitcoin because of the meeting.

What do $79,000, $78,000 and $77,600 actually mean?

The $79,000 area is worth monitoring because Binance BTC/USDT traded around 79,221 USDT on October 24, while Monday’s reported lows ranged around $79,300–$79,400, depending on the source. It is an observed recent trading area—not a rule that buyers must defend it. $78,000, by contrast, is a round-number scenario level; I have not found sufficient evidence to call it an independently confirmed support zone.

One better-defined lower reference comes from Glassnode’s October 21 research. Using metrics with underlying observations through approximately October 19, Glassnode estimated the True Market Mean—its model of active investors’ aggregate cost basis—near $77,600. That is a modeled on-chain reference, not an automatic next price target.

The same report placed the estimated acquisition cost of Bitcoin held by U.S. spot ETFs around $81,500. This is not the purchase price of every ETF shareholder, the cost basis of all ETF shares or a threshold that automatically triggers ETF selling. Model estimates can also change with subsequent holdings and transactions. I would use both figures for context, not as guarantees of a floor or ceiling.

For readers comparing price feeds and historical candles, Cryptolinks maintains a crypto price-tracker directory and a market-data and exchange-statistics section.

The evidence, without a single-cause story

What I would watch next: recovery or renewed selling pressure?

A stabilization case would begin with more than one momentary print above $80,000. I would look for at least one completed UTC daily BTC/USDT candle above $80,000, followed by continued trading that holds the area, alongside improving spot-market participation. Positive or less negative ETF figures in completed U.S. sessions, calmer funding rates and no immediate rebuild of extreme leveraged exposure would strengthen that interpretation. A single green candle or short squeeze would not be enough for me.

A continued-pressure case would look different: repeated intraday rebounds that fail by the UTC close, another test or break of the recent $79,200–$79,400 trading lows, weak spot demand and renewed long-liquidation bursts. If that happened, I would then reassess the modeled $77,600 True Market Mean in light of updated Glassnode data—not treat it as an inevitable destination.

The main evidence that would change my view is a sustained recovery with independently observable spot buying, or, in the other direction, fresh ETF withdrawals combined with weakening prices after the Fed decision. Until then, I think the strongest description of Bitcoin’s October 24–26 action is straightforward: ETF demand weakened, leverage magnified an intraday drop, and macro uncertainty formed a difficult backdrop. The available data cannot assign precise shares of the decline to each factor.

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