Bitcoin sinks under $77,000, its weakest in more than a month, and $1.55 billion of leveraged bets are wiped out as the Binance hack hits a market already sold off with tech

Bitcoin fell below $77,000 late on Thursday, its weakest level in more than a month, after Binance confirmed a security breach that it estimates at about $6.3 billion. The Block put bitcoin at $76,664 at 10pm Eastern, down 4.5 percent over 24 hours, with BNB at $698.65, down 7.1 percent, ether at $2,190, down 5.2 percent, and XRP at $1.21, down 7 percent. CoinDesk said the majors hit session lows around 9pm Eastern, with bitcoin down about 5 percent.

Leverage made the fall sharper. CoinGlass data cited by The Block showed $1.55 billion of positions liquidated across 246,482 traders in 24 hours, $1.34 billion of them longs. The biggest single liquidation was an $11.09 million BTCUSDT position on Binance itself.

The day had already turned. CoinDesk's live coverage shows bitcoin climbing above $81,000 in the morning after third-quarter US growth came in at a 3.4 percent annual rate, then reversing to $80,600 by 1:55pm Eastern as Alphabet dropped 13 percent and the Nasdaq fell 1.6 percent on worries about AI spending. Bitcoin lost $80,000 at about 4:40pm as the first reports of drained Binance wallets appeared, and Nasdaq 100 futures were down about 2 percent in the evening.

Analysts split on how bad it is. Dominick John of Zeus Research told The Block that "the Binance exploit has intensified market-wide selling, with BNB facing the greatest exposure." Rick Maeda of Laevitas called the reaction fairly contained and BNB's drop modest for possibly the largest exchange theft ever, and Jeff Ko of ViaBTC said he does not expect the stolen bitcoin to add much selling pressure. Fox Business, citing Reuters, said ether hit a two-month low of $2,238.76 in early Asian trading on Friday. Binance's withdrawals remain suspended, so the next test is how the market trades when they reopen.