Bitcoin selloff intensifies as crypto liquidations exceed $1B (Cryptocurrency:BTC-USD)

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) extended its selloff in Friday morning trading as cryptocurrency traders suffered outsized liquidations as a raft of headwinds weighed on sentiment.

The original crypto dropped 7.7% to $26.1K — the lowest mark since mid-June — with $1.04B of long positions (mostly in bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ethereum (ETH-USD)) wiped out during the rout, according to Coinglass data.

After trading in a narrow range for months, bitcoin’s (BTC-USD) swoon abruptly took hold earlier this week, given investors’ fears over higher-for-longer interest rates, as well as regulatory scrutiny, weakness in China’s economy, among other hurdles.

Other major tokens also experienced intraday losses in the wake of thin liquidity, including ethereum (ETH-USD) -6.4%, XRP (XRP-USD), cardano (ADA-USD) -3.7%, dogecoin (DOGE-USD) -6.2% and solana (SOL-USD) -5.5%. That said, crypto-linked stocks changed hands in the red, too: MicroStrategy (MSTR) -5%, Coinbase Global (COIN) -2%, Core Scientific (OTCPK:CORZQ) –5.2%, CleanSpark (CLSK) -7% and Bitfarms (BITF) -4.5%.

Another potential driver of the crypto selloff is the Wall Street Journal reporting that Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has written down the $373M of bitcoin (BTC-USD) it held last year and in 2021, citing documents.

The newspaper noted that SpaceX has sold bitcoin (BTC-USD), though there was no mention of how much or when.