Bitcoin is hovering near $78,000 after a broad crypto selloff put speculative tokens under heavier pressure. The largest cryptocurrency fell 2% over 24 hours to $78,111, erasing Wednesday’s gains and leaving it 5.1% below last week’s $82,284 peak, according to CoinDesk Indices data.
The retreat spread well beyond Bitcoin. Dogecoin dropped more than 5%, making it the biggest decliner among major tokens, while BNB fell about 4% and XRP lost roughly 3%. Solana, Ether and Hyperliquid’s HYPE token also moved lower, with Ether slipping to just below $2,475 and Solana trading near $102.
Tron was the exception, rising less than 1% to around $0.34. But the broader picture was decidedly weaker: 95 of the 100 assets tracked by the CoinDesk 100 declined, with the sharpest losses coming during the overnight session.
Bitcoin Is Losing Ground Where Speculation Runs Hot
The most striking damage is happening at the riskier end of the market. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index dropped 10% in 24 hours, while the small-cap CoinDesk 80 fell 5.1%. By comparison, the CoinDesk 5, which tracks larger cryptocurrencies, declined 2.3%.
That split offers a useful snapshot of investor appetite. The market is not selling everything at the same speed; traders are pulling back most aggressively from the tokens whose prices tend to move hardest when sentiment shifts.
The pace of selling has moderated since midnight UTC. Even so, 86 of the 100 CoinDesk 100 constituents were still in negative territory, leaving the index down 0.54% during the session.
Traditional markets are providing little in the way of a neat explanation. S&P 500 futures were up 0.22%, while Nasdaq futures were flat. Gold gained 0.16%, and the Dollar Index was unchanged.
Attention is now turning to US inflation data. Producer price figures for August are due later Thursday, followed by the Consumer Price Index on Friday. Those releases will help shape expectations for the next interest-rate decision.
Derivatives markets are adding another layer to the story. The taker long-short ratio in crypto futures has turned bearish again after briefly improving Wednesday, suggesting traders are becoming more cautious as oil prices and Treasury yields remain elevated.
Bitcoin’s futures open interest has also fallen 2% to about $139 billion, even as trading volume increased 5%. That combination points to more position reshuffling alongside a moderate reduction in capital committed to the market.
Open interest declined across most major tokens, including Ether, Solana, Tron, Zcash and BNB, while their 24-hour cumulative volume delta remained negative. Dogecoin and Sui posted the weakest CVD readings among the major assets.
Yet the derivatives picture is not uniformly bearish. Funding rates for most major cryptocurrencies remain moderately positive at roughly 5% annualized, indicating that perpetual contracts are still trading at a premium and that long positions remain more popular than shorts.
Litecoin and Shiba Inu were notable exceptions, with negative funding rates.
Volatility expectations are also relatively contained. Thirty-day implied volatility for Bitcoin and Ether has moved above their respective 50-day and 100-day averages, but the measures have not accelerated sharply. For now, options markets are signaling more caution than panic.
That leaves Bitcoin in an awkward middle ground: weaker than it was a week ago, surrounded by a much rougher selloff in speculative tokens, but without the kind of volatility spike that would suggest traders expect chaos.