Crypto markets slide as Bitcoin dips under $80K and Solana touches $95
Crypto had a rough hour. Amid unconfirmed suspicions of a Binance hack, the market dropped hard, and $590 million in long positions were wiped out in just sixty minutes.Bitcoin slipped beneath the $80,000 line, while Solana dipped to intraday lows near $95. Rumors moved prices first, and the facts arrived later.Bitcoin fell to approximately $79,600 to $79,800 during the stretch between October 24 and October 29, 2026. That works out to a decline of about 2 to 2.5%.Solana took a similar path. It traded down into the mid-to-high $90s, touching intraday lows near $95, before steadying around the $99 to $100 area.The real damage showed up in the derivatives market. The headline figure is the one-hour flush: $590 million in long positions liquidated as prices dropped.Zoom out to 24-hour windows across the period, and total futures liquidations ranged between $356 million and $834 million. Long positions absorbed most of that pain, with long liquidations estimated at approximately $205 million to $701 million.The spark for the sharpest move was talk of a potential security breach at Binance. The suspicions were unconfirmed, but in crypto, unconfirmed has never stopped anyone from hitting the sell button.Binance later addressed the issue. On October 27, the exchange said it had successfully fended off multiple cyberattacks linked to North Korea, and that no assets were lost and no breaches occurred.The rumor also landed on a market that was already wobbly. Equity markets were in a risk-off mood after disappointing earnings from major tech names, including Samsung and Alphabet.Monetary policy added more weight. The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady in a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, keeping a hawkish posture amid ongoing inflation concerns.Binance sits at the center of a large share of crypto trading activity. Any hint that its security has been compromised raises an immediate question for traders: are my funds safe?North Korea-linked hacking groups have been a persistent concern for crypto platforms. Binance's statement that it blocked attacks tied to those actors shows the threat is active, even if this round failed.The most important signal here is not the price drop. It is the size of the liquidations relative to that drop.A roughly 2 to 2.5% decline in Bitcoin should not, by itself, erase $590 million in long positions in an hour. That it did suggests leverage had piled up heavily on one side of the trade, leaving the market fragile.For Bitcoin, the $80,000 area now looks like a key level to watch. For exchanges, the lesson is about communication speed. Binance said it had blocked the attacks without losses, but the market reacted to the rumor before that reassurance fully landed. The gap between a rumor and a clear response is exactly where liquidations happen.