Altcoin Market Slides as $614M in Longs Liquidated Following FOMC Rate Cut and Trump–Xi Meeting

Bitcoin and altcoins are shaken again as the market inversely responded to the recent rate reduction implemented by the Federal Reserve and the doubt about the Trump-Xi meeting.

Despite the FOMC’s intended 25 basis point decline to boost liquidity, risk assets continued to decline. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum fell more than 2%, and the Altcoin Index was unable to maintain the recent gains.

Altcoins Find It Harder to Catch On

The majority of altcoins are still in a downtrend, and their negative trend was the first part of a multi-week move by the traders toward a more stable position. The Altcoin Index that temporarily rose to a two-week high earlier this week is now down to 32/100.

Leading altcoins, including XPL, decreased 14% on the day, and ENA and 2Z decreased approximately 8% each. The selling came as the announcement at the FOMC did not help build confidence, and overall crypto market capitalization went down to 3.97 trillion.

The sentiment is reflected in the Fear and Greed Index, and it has moved to 34, squarely in the Fear zone.

In the last 24 hours, an amount of about $818 million in positions has been liquidated, and the liquidation of positions has been in the amount of approximately $613M in longs.

Notable Gainers Defy the Trend

Although the market was mainly negative, some of the altcoins showed exceptional gains, which is indicative of selective market power.

Gainers such as $RZTO (+229%) , $DEXTF (+116%), $AXR (+82%), $DOP (+61%), and $AURORA (+38%) increased when the rest of the market was falling. Analysts indicate that such spikes may be fueled by more project-specific catalysts and more speculative short-term trading, meaning a larger recovery picture.

Nevertheless, the good performance of these tokens provides a wake-up that even in the crowded markets, the innovative or low-cap assets can demonstrate their stability and appeal to liquidity flows. These divergences can be revisited when there is a stabilization of sentiment in general.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Face Whale Activity

The two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum , experienced accumulating selling pressure as well after the FOMC decision.

Bitcoin declined 2.4% to be trading at $110,322, whereas Ethereum was trading at $3,919. To make the matter even more ambiguous, big holders also made significant shifts.

Whale investor Owen Gunden sold 2,587 BTC for $289 million in the last 9 days, and Ethereum whale 0x550 transferred his 10,000 ETH holdings, worth $39.1 million, to Binance.

These moves are indicating that even the experienced investors are de-risking in the environment of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty.

With volatility soaring as well as the RSI value in the major assets coming in at 40.25, the markets are currently seeking clues of stabilization before the economic data releases come out next week.