Why Is Bitcoin Below $80,000? Weekend Slide on U.S. Middle East Evacuations, a $636M ETF Outflow and What to Check Before the Fed (October 25, 2026)

What happened over the weekend

CoinDesk reported on Saturday morning U.S. time that crypto prices were in broad decline, with bitcoin down 2.2% over 24 hours to about $79,700 and ether, XRP and solana down 3% to 4%. The trigger it cited was a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. was evacuating personnel throughout the Middle East as intelligence pointed to Iranian plans to target Americans. CoinDesk quoted a Friday memo from the director of national intelligence saying Iranian plotting had reached "advanced stages", and noted the evacuations went well beyond earlier orders for some diplomatic staff in Saudi Arabia.

Weekend crypto markets react to that kind of headline on their own, because stock and bond markets are closed and bitcoin is one of the few liquid risk assets still trading. Thin weekend order books also mean that a wave of sell orders moves the price further than it would on a weekday.

The table shows the bigger drop happened on Wednesday, 22 October, when bitcoin fell from above $84,000 to below $81,500. Saturday's move was smaller in percentage terms but broke the round $80,000 level that many traders watch, and it has not closed a UTC day back above $81,500 since.

The ETF flows behind the soft week

Decrypt, citing daily issuer data, reported that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $635.6 million on Thursday, 22 October. That erased nearly 60% of a three-day, $1.07 billion inflow streak and turned October back into a net outflow of about $176 million, after the month had been roughly $460 million positive on Wednesday. It was the biggest single-day outflow of the month, above the $484.9 million exit on 7 October.

Ether funds lost $110.6 million the same day, bringing their October outflows to about $1.18 billion, and Solana funds shed $8.9 million. Decrypt also put bitcoin's 30-day decline at 4.8% and ether's at 11.4% as of Friday. ETF flows matter for traders because much of that money comes from institutions and financial advisers, so a run of outflows signals that the large, slow buyers who supported the price earlier in the month have stepped back.

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What our market data shows

We read our own liquidations board and the Binance and OKX public funding data at 10:45 UTC on 25 October.

The largest single liquidation, an ether long of about $11.85 million, hit at 15:15 UTC on Saturday, minutes after CoinDesk published its report, which fits a headline-driven flush of leveraged longs. Ether took more damage than bitcoin in the liquidation count, in line with its deeper 30-day drop.

Funding is still slightly positive on both venues. That means long positions are still paying shorts a small fee every eight hours, so the market has not swung into heavy short positioning. Open interest fell on both majors, which tells you some leverage left the system rather than new shorts piling in.

The dates that matter this week

• 27–28 October: The Federal Reserve's policy meeting, per the Fed's published calendar. The decision lands at 02:00 Singapore time on Thursday, 29 October, with the press conference at 02:30, as Odaily's week-ahead calendar lists it. Decrypt reported that traders expect a hold.
• 28 October: Strategy shareholders vote on switching its STRC preferred stock to daily dividend accrual, according to Odaily's summary of the company's proposal.
• 29 October, after the U.S. close: Strategy discloses its third-quarter results. Strategy (MSTR) is the largest corporate bitcoin holder, so its numbers and any comment on buying pace tend to move bitcoin sentiment. You can follow the stock on our MSTR tokenized stock page.

A rate decision at 02:00 local time is exactly the kind of moment when crypto order books go thin and wicks get long in both directions.

What to do now if you trade on an exchange

First, check your liquidation price against the weekend low. If a long position would be liquidated near $79,000, Saturday showed that level can be reached on a single headline. Lowering leverage or adding margin before Wednesday's decision costs less than a forced close.

Second, look at funding before you hold a perpetual through the Fed. At current rates the cost is small, but funding can jump quickly after a large move, and you pay it every settlement while the position is open. Our funding rate board compares Binance and OKX side by side.

Third, decide in advance what you will do if bitcoin moves sharply at 02:00 on Thursday. A stop order placed before you go to sleep is more reliable than reacting to a push alert.

If you trade often enough that fees matter, open your account on a venue that returns part of the fee. Opening a Bitget account with code nexu888 returns up to 60% of your trading fees automatically each day, and the Bitget exchange profile lists its current fee rates. You can compare other venues on our liquidations board and fee pages before you choose.

Quick answers

Why did bitcoin drop below $80,000? CoinDesk tied Saturday's drop to reports that the U.S. was evacuating personnel across the Middle East over the threat of Iranian attacks. It followed a week in which U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their biggest October outflow, $635.6 million on Thursday.

How low did bitcoin go? Binance's BTCUSDT market hit $79,220.74 on 24 October. On Sunday afternoon Singapore time it traded near $80,220.

Were many traders liquidated? On Binance alone we observed about $64.8 million of BTCUSDT and $74.7 million of ETHUSDT liquidations in the 24 hours to 10:45 UTC on 25 October, with the largest single order an ether long of about $11.85 million.

When is the next big event? The Fed's rate decision at 02:00 Singapore time on 29 October, then Strategy's third-quarter results after the U.S. close the same day.

Is funding negative now? No. BTC funding was +0.0071% on Binance and +0.0100% on OKX per eight hours at 10:45 UTC, so longs still pay a small fee to shorts.