Bitcoin plunged to $64,000 and the rout in U.S. tech stocks spilled over into cryptocurrencies, leading to the liquidation of $250 million in longs

BTC plunged from more than $65,500 to $64,100 in the early hours of Thursday morning, and Asian markets were hit hard.

Bitcoin experienced a sharp drop of more than 3% at the start of the Asian trading session, which took place against the backdrop of a general decline in the stock market. More than $250 million in bullish bets were wiped out, marking the largest liquidation since early July.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell sharply by more than 3% at the start of the Asian trading session, against the backdrop of a general decline in the stock market and waning confidence in risky assets such as cryptocurrencies. BTC fell from more than $65,500 to nearly $64,000 in just a few minutes at the start of the Tokyo trading session. The sudden plunge led to the liquidation of more than $250 million in bullish bets, the most costly liquidation since early July.

Liquidation is when an exchange forces the liquidation of a trader's leveraged position, resulting in a partial or total loss of the trader's initial margin. This kind of data is useful for traders as it serves as a signal that the leverage of popular futures products is effectively washed out as a short-term indication of price volatility.

The composite CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a liquidity index that tracks the largest tokens by market capitalization (excluding stablecoins), fell 3.3 percent.

Bulls in Ethereum (ETH) suffered the most losses, reaching $100 million, as the token fell 7.5 percent, led by outflows from the newly launched ETH ETF. Binance recorded the highest clearing at $118 million, of which 88% were long trades. OKX and Huobi - exchanges commonly used by Asian traders - recorded up to 94% of long trades being cleared.

The rout came as U.S. tech stocks took a beating on Wednesday, sending the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index down 660 points, its biggest drop since 2022. Mixed quarterly earnings reports from Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) and Tesla (TSLA) caused shares of those companies to close as much as 12% lower on Wednesday; Overall, tech stocks known as the "Spectacular 7" lost more than $750 billion in market value on Wednesday, the biggest one-day loss in the history of the portfolio.

The losses extended into early Asian trading Thursday, as Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell more than 3 percent on fears that the Bank of Japan might raise interest rates.