Bitcoin Price Falls Below $59K Amid Broad Market Rout; Ether Slumps Almost 10%

Cryptocurrencies suffered substantial losses as the U.S. business day came to a close, with bitcoin (BTC) tumbling below $59,000 and Ethereum's ether (ETH) losing almost 10%.

Bitcoin had topped $62,700 earlier in the day, but recently was down 6.5% from 24 hours earlier. Amid the rout, it got as low as $58,240, the lowest price since Aug. 19. Ether traded as high as $2,700 earlier Wednesday, but recently fetched less than $2,500.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the sell-off. The sudden downturn triggered $313 million in liquidations of leveraged crypto derivatives positions over the past 24 hours, the biggest washout since Aug. 5 crash, CoinGlass data shows. ETH traders suffered over $100 million in liquidations, while BTC traders endured $95 million.

Other top-10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization have seen similar declines, with BNB (BNB) falling nearly 4% to $528, Solana's (SOL) dropping 7% to $146 and (XRP) trading down 4% to $0.56. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Tron (TRX) were also down 6.5% and 2.25% respectively, trading at $0.098 and $0.158.

The Telegram-associated (TON) token was actually up nearly 5% over the past 24 hours, after falling precipitously on the news that Telegram founder Pavel Durov had been arrested in France on various charges.