The crypto market falls accelerated heading into Halloween weekend, with investors in a selling mood. A record-breaking exchange hack, a sliding stock market, and a bruised appetite for risk combined to push digital assets lower on Friday, with Bitcoin sinking toward $77,000 and the total crypto market shedding tens of billions of dollars in a single day.
The numbers tell the story of a market under pressure. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell 2.25% over 24 hours to $2.62 trillion, according to market data. Bitcoin, which accounts for nearly six in ten dollars in the entire crypto market, traded near $77,292 — down 0.47% on the day and uncomfortably close to a level that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago.
Crypto Market Falls: Bitcoin $77,000 in Sight as the Market Bleeds
Bitcoin’s dominance held steady at 59.2% of the total market even as its price sagged, a sign that traders were fleeing smaller, riskier tokens even faster than they were selling the market leader. Ethereum fared slightly better, rising 0.90% to $2,240 and holding a 10.4% share of overall market value.
The pullback caps a miserable stretch for Bitcoin holders. The token is now flirting with what could be its worst October performance in twelve years — a stunning reversal for a month that crypto traders historically celebrate. The weakness has coincided with a broader downturn in technology stocks and a drop in gold prices to a one-year low, suggesting the selling is about risk appetite in general, not crypto in particular.
When stocks wobble and gold slides at the same time, it usually means one thing: investors are reaching for cash, and speculative assets are the first to feel it as the crypto market falls.
The Binance Hack Fallout: Crypto Market Sees $3 Billion Frozen
Driving much of the day’s volatility is the fallout from the Binance hack — a $6.3 billion security breach that ranks among the largest exchange hacks in crypto history.
Stablecoin issuers including Tether and Circle moved quickly to freeze portions of the stolen funds as the attackers tried to convert them into tokens that could not be immobilized. Roughly $3 billion has reportedly been frozen so far, a remarkable intervention that has kept a bad situation from becoming catastrophic.
The episode has also hammered crypto-linked stocks. Shares of Coinbase, Circle, and Strategy all fell sharply in the aftermath of the disclosure, as equity investors priced in the reputational and financial damage rippling out from the world’s largest exchange.
For an industry still trying to convince mainstream finance it has grown up, a $6.3 billion hack is the worst possible headline at the worst possible moment.
Winners and Losers in a Sea of Red
Despite the market-wide retreat, pockets of speculation kept flickering even as the crypto market falls. Infinity Ground’s AIN token surged 77.2% to $0.2644, the standout mover of the day — though its market cap rank of 452 points to a thin, speculative trading base rather than genuine conviction. NEAR Protocol climbed 4.83% to $4.32, and Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU token rose 4.33%.
Among established names, Ondo led the gainers with a 6.38% advance to $0.4111, followed by Chainlink, up 5.44% to $11.49, and Quant, which gained 5.85% to $193.65.
The losers’ list was longer and uglier. TRON suffered the steepest decline among major cryptocurrencies, falling 7.14% to $0.327. MemeCore dropped 5.62%, Rain fell 4.50%, and Monero slid 3.20% to $589.06. Akedo, a smaller trending token, posted the day’s sharpest loss across all tracked assets — a brutal 41.01% plunge. Even Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, the most actively discussed token by market cap, slipped 2.71% to $89.56.
The breadth of the decline — hitting large caps and speculative tokens alike — suggests the crypto market falls have spread risk aversion well beyond assets directly tied to the Binance incident.
What Comes Next for Bitcoin
With Bitcoin hovering near $77,000 as the crypto market falls, traders are watching whether the level holds or gives way to a deeper slide. The combination of the hack fallout, tech-stock weakness, and October’s historically bad showing has left sentiment fragile heading into November.
The one silver lining: $3 billion in frozen funds shows the industry’s immune system is working better than it used to. A decade ago, a hack of this size might have meant the money simply vanished. Today, issuers can — and do — hit the brakes.
Still, for Bitcoin holders nursing losses as the crypto market falls into Halloween, that is cold comfort.
Read more: Binance $6.3 billion crypto heist — how the record hack unfolded
Source: LoopWire