Crypto Majors Sell Off in Tandem Thursday as BTC Drops 3.4% to $81,278; ETH, SOL, XRP All Shed Over 3%

Crypto majors sold off in near-lockstep Thursday, with bitcoin falling 3.4% to $81,278 and ether sliding 3.7% to $2,381.78. Solana and XRP posted matching declines of 3.4% and 4.7%, respectively, in a session that erased the week's earlier gains and pointed to broad-based de-risking rather than asset-specific pressure.

Market Overview

Thursday brought the first synchronized down-day for crypto majors in two weeks. Bitcoin closed at $81,278, down -3.4% ↓ on the session and now -0.6% ↓ on the week, though it remains +13.7% ↑ over 30 days. The uniformity of the move — four majors down between 3.4% and 4.7% — points to macro-driven positioning rather than any single-asset catalyst.

Asset Price Analysis

Bitcoin lost the $82,000 handle during Thursday's session and settled at $81,278. The 30-day picture remains constructive, but Thursday's drop snapped a quiet stretch and takes BTC back into the mid-$81K range that acted as support on the way up.

Ether underperformed slightly, falling -3.7% ↓ to $2,381.78. The 7-day change now matches the 24-hour move at -3.7% ↓, meaning essentially all of ETH's recent weekly action occurred in Thursday's session. The $2,400 level, which held as support earlier in the week, failed to defend on the close.

Solana dropped -3.4% ↓ to $103.32 but is still +9.2% ↑ on the week and +15.6% ↑ over 30 days — the best-performing major on both lookbacks. The $100 handle is the first visible support.

XRP was the session laggard at -4.7% ↓, closing at $1.30. The weekly print remains positive at +1.7% ↑, so Thursday's move erased most but not all of the week's prior advance.

ETF Flows (Prior Settled Session)

Issuer flow data for Thursday's session has not yet settled. The most recent complete tape is Wednesday, October 21, which showed +$445.7M ↑ in net inflows across spot crypto ETFs, according to InflowScan data — a figure that provided the overnight bid heading into Thursday's weak session.

IBIT (BlackRock): +$229.6M ↑
FBTC (Fidelity): +$207.9M ↑
GBTC (Grayscale): +$31.9M ↑
ETHA (BlackRock): -$28.6M ↓
BITB (Bitwise): -$10.3M ↓

XRP fund coverage on Wednesday was partial — 8 of 9 funds reported, with XRPK still settling, per InflowScan data. The IBIT/FBTC concentration on the inflow side is consistent with the week's pattern of fund-of-fund routing into the two largest spot BTC products. Thursday's settled flow tape, which will capture any redemption response to the price drop, prints in Friday's pre-market brief.

Stablecoin Flows

Stablecoin supply moved in opposite directions Thursday, according to InflowScan data. USDC supply rose +$340M ↑ to $72.6B, while USDT contracted -$161M ↓ to $182.6B. The net aggregate is roughly flat. The USDC build on a down-price day is consistent with sidelined capital rather than fresh deployment — dry powder accumulating rather than chasing the move.

Outlook

Friday brings the Thursday settled flow print, which will reveal whether institutional allocators treated the sell-off as a buying opportunity or stepped back. The IBIT/FBTC flow split is the primary tell: continued concentration there, even on a redemption day, would be consistent with rebalancing rather than exit.

Key levels to watch: BTC $80,000 (round-number support below Thursday's close), ETH $2,350 (next visible support after losing $2,400), SOL $100 (the handle it defended through the week's rally). On the funding side, any flip to deeply negative perpetual rates would mark a positioning shift worth flagging in Friday's briefs.