Bitcoin slumped on Friday, extending losses as investor risk appetite for cryptocurrencies cooled ahead of the release of the key US core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation report. The downturn was exacerbated by a reversal in institutional sentiment, with US spot Bitcoin ETFs recording significant net outflows.
The price of BTC briefly touched a low of $108,652 before stabilizing, putting it nearly 6% down for the past week. Ether and several altcoins also saw sharp declines, logging double-digit losses over the last seven days.
Investor caution was evident in the latest data for exchange-traded funds. US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted approximately $258 million in net outflows on September 25. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust was the only fund among its peers to record net inflows for the day.
Meanwhile, spot Ether ETFs faced their fourth consecutive session of withdrawals, seeing roughly $251 million in net outflows on the same day.
The leveraged derivatives market bore the brunt of the sharp price drop. Data from CoinGlass showed nearly $1 billion in crypto liquidations over the past 24 hours. The liquidations were primarily driven by long positions, indicating a forced deleveraging following this week’s broader market decline, which began after the recent Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. Over 225,392 traders were stopped out, with the largest single liquidated trade being a $19.3 million ETH-USDT position on HTX.
Analysts pointed to profit-taking by whales and long-term investors since late August, which has pressured spot markets despite fluctuating ETF flows.
