Bitcoin Slips Below $80,000 After the Fed's Hawkish Hold as a Tech Selloff Sparks $356 Million in Liquidations

Bitcoin fell below $80,000 during Asian trading on Thursday, October 29, 2026, reversing a two-day rebound as weak reactions to technology earnings and a Federal Reserve decision viewed as hawkish weighed on risk assets. The largest cryptocurrency dropped from above $81,700 to around $79,800, CoinDesk reported.

Bitcoin was down 0.9% at $80,133.1 as of 02:14 ET, according to Investing.com. Moneycontrol put the price near $79,750 at 09:24 IST, down 1.63% over 24 hours and 3.71% over the week.

Tech earnings set the tone

The selling began after U.S. markets closed on Wednesday, when Alphabet reported third-quarter revenue and operating income below expectations, CoinDesk reported, noting that Alphabet shares were down 10% in premarket trading. It continued in Asia, where Samsung Electronics shares fell more than 5% after its semiconductor division's operating profit of 106.5 trillion won, a 15-fold increase, fell just short of the average analyst estimate of 108.5 trillion won. Samsung also said it expects capital expenditure to reach 84.4 trillion won, or about $63 billion, this year, up roughly 60%, and its group-wide net income rose 39%. South Korea's Kospi fell more than 2%, and futures tied to the Nasdaq declined 1.4%, according to CoinDesk.

Crypto prices tend to move with technology shares, Investing.com noted, and a higher-rate outlook raises the opportunity cost of holding speculative assets. The broader cryptocurrency market lost about 1.57% over 24 hours, according to crypto.news market data.

The Fed's 10-2 hold

On Wednesday the Fed kept its target range at 3.75% to 4%, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack voting for a quarter-point increase, crypto.news reported. After the decision, CME FedWatch showed a 79.8% probability of a quarter-point hike in December, up from 73.4% a week earlier, and the 10-year Treasury yield moved back above 5%, Investing.com reported. ING still expects the Fed to raise rates again in December, according to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin initially recovered above $81,000 after the announcement before retreating toward $79,800, crypto.news said. Investors are now awaiting September's Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation report, scheduled for Thursday, for which economists surveyed by the Associated Press expected annual inflation of 3.6% compared with 3.4% in August, the outlet reported.

Liquidations and altcoins

Crypto futures positions worth $356 million were liquidated over 24 hours, with long positions accounting for $205 million, CoinDesk reported. Bitcoin futures accounted for $94 million of the liquidations and ether futures for $72 million.

Ether fell 1.5% to $2,316.64, XRP lost 2.2%, Solana shed 1.7% and Cardano slid 3.6%, while BNB rose 1.3%, according to Investing.com. Dogecoin and the $TRUMP memecoin each fell 1.6%.

ETF flows

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded net inflows in each of the first three sessions of the week: $110.34 million on October 26, $175.99 million on October 27 and $137.33 million on October 28, for a combined $423.66 million, according to SoSoValue data cited by crypto.news. The inflows followed withdrawals of about $635.6 million on October 22. Cumulative net inflows reached $57.61 billion, and the funds held about $104.88 billion in net assets, with $1.26 billion in trading volume in the latest session, the outlet reported. Moneycontrol, citing a different tally, reported inflows of $23.4 million into spot Ethereum ETFs, led by Fidelity's FETH.

On-chain activity was subdued, with analytics firm Santiment finding bitcoin transaction and active-address counts below their July-to-September weekday averages, crypto.news reported.

Other developments

Shareholders of Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin with 848,517 BTC, approved daily dividend payments on its four preferred securities, STRF, STRC, STRK and STRD, with 99.3% of votes cast in favor, Cointelegraph reported. The change replaces semi-monthly or quarterly schedules with payments every business day while leaving annual dividend rates unchanged. Strategy expects STRC to begin daily payments on November 2 and the other three on January 4, 2027. The securities carry annual dividend rates of 8% to 12%, with STRC paying a variable 12%. Rival bitcoin treasury company Strive, which holds 43,000 BTC, introduced daily dividends on its SATA preferred stock in June and recently raised $630 million through a second preferred offering, SATS, which carries a 15% annual rate, according to Cointelegraph.

Coinbase said on Wednesday that contact information for a "small subset" of its customers was exposed in a security incident at analytics vendor Amplitude, Cointelegraph reported. The exchange denied that its own systems had been breached and said customer funds were not affected. In South Korea, exchange Bithumb is investigating whether a breach of its internal work platform exposed customer information, the outlet added.