Bitcoin fell back under $64,000 on July 28 as roughly $100 million in leveraged positions were wiped out across the crypto market inside 60 minutes. It marked the third time this week traders were flushed out around that level, and it landed alongside an 8.02% plunge in South Korea’s KOSPI. The Federal Reserve opens a two-day meeting the same day.
Roughly $100 million in leveraged positions were wiped out across the crypto market in a single hour on July 28, as bitcoin slid back under $64,000. That hour ran faster than either of the two prior episodes this week.
Bitcoin breaks $64,000 for the third time since July 24
Bitcoin’s price broke below $64,000 for the third time since July 24, when an earlier slide from nearly $67,000 triggered an $87 million liquidation event. That flush split into $70 million in long positions and $17 million in shorts.
Three days later, bitcoin failed three separate attempts to clear resistance at $65,500, pushing total 24-hour liquidations to $75 million as the price slipped to a session low of $64,336.
KOSPI’s 8.02% drop trips an eighth circuit breaker
The liquidations coincided with a sharp selloff in South Korean equities. The KOSPI dropped 8.02%, or 542.24 points, to 6,213.51, triggering the index’s eighth circuit breaker of the year on the back of a plunge in U.S. semiconductor stocks.
That extends a run of chip-driven routs this month, because a similar KOSPI selloff on July 13 marked the exchange’s seventh circuit breaker of 2026. Crypto and semiconductor equities have moved in tandem for much of the year — during a mid-July selloff, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index unwound gains built on AI infrastructure enthusiasm, bitcoin fell 1.2% to below $63,000.
Traders now eye the Fed’s rate call
The Federal Reserve, under Chair Kevin Warsh, opened its two-day meeting on July 28 with the federal funds rate parked at 3.50%-3.75% for a fourth consecutive meeting. Outlooks on the timing of any 2026 rate cut have already been pushed later across several forecasts.
A policy statement is expected tomorrow, with Bitcoin.com News flagging the Fed’s decision, the pending Digital Asset Market Clarity Act vote and two anticipated Bitcoin forks in August as converging catalysts that could drive sharper price swings into month-end.
None of those catalysts has resolved yet, which helps explain why $64,000 keeps getting tested from both sides rather than breaking decisively. Options and leverage positioning has clustered between the $65,000 and $70,000 strikes, meaning traders are still betting on a recovery even as short-term liquidations pile up around the lower end.
Weak spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund inflows and Strategy Inc.’s decision to hold $544.5 million in cash rather than add to its bitcoin treasury are also being cited as headwinds traders are likely to treat as the next real test of whether support holds.
Source: Bitcoin News
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