Crypto crash live: Solana and Aave lead the sell-off as markets price a December Fed hike

Crypto crash live, Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 6:30 p.m. ET: The crypto market is down 2.2 percent to $2.45 trillion after hotter-than-expected US inflation data pushed traders to price a Federal Reserve rate hike in December. Bitcoin fell to $72,748 at 12:40 p.m. ET, its lowest level since August 20, and now trades at $73,555. The altcoins took the heavier hit: Solana is down 4.1 percent at $82.95 and has lost a quarter of its value in 30 days, and Aave dropped 6.1 percent to $123.75, almost three times as much as Bitcoin. Within 24 hours, $718 million in leveraged positions were wiped out, 81 percent of them bets on rising prices.

We update this live ticker through the US evening. The standing answer to why crypto falls, with the six forces behind almost every sell-off and the timeline of the 2026 drops, is on our page Why is crypto down today?

Crypto crash: the key numbers at 6:30 p.m. ET

• Bitcoin: $73,555, down 2.2 percent in 24 hours and 12.1 percent in 30 days, according to CoinMarketCap
• Ethereum: $2,047, down 4.0 percent in 24 hours, day low $2,010
• Solana: $82.95, down 4.1 percent in 24 hours, 11.2 percent in 7 days and 25.3 percent in 30 days
• Aave: $123.75, down 6.1 percent in 24 hours and 27.8 percent in 30 days
• Liquidations: $717.75 million in 24 hours across 119,352 traders, $581.54 million of it long positions, according to CoinGlass
• Fear and Greed Index: 32, fear, according to alternative.me
• Fed: a quarter-point rate hike on December 9 is now the base case in futures markets

Crypto crash live updates: how November 10 unfolded

6:30 p.m. ET: a shaky bounce, and late short sellers are paying. Bitcoin has climbed 1.1 percent from its low, Solana 1.4 percent and Aave 2.1 percent. In the last four hours it was short sellers, not buyers, who were forced out: of $19.6 million in liquidations, $14.1 million hit short positions, CoinGlass shows. Open interest in crypto futures is down 2.1 percent to $126.7 billion, so leverage has been cleared, not rebuilt.

4:00 p.m. ET: Wall Street closes lower, the bond market sends the warning. The S&P 500 ended 0.38 percent lower at 7,520.93 and the Nasdaq 0.74 percent lower at 25,065.88, with Nvidia down more than 5 percent, according to Yahoo Finance. The sharper move was in Treasuries: the two-year yield jumped 17 basis points to 4.73 percent, and the ten-year rose 10 basis points to 4.98 percent after briefly trading above 5 percent, as the Capp Notes closing recap shows.

12:40 p.m. ET: Bitcoin hits the low of the day at $72,748. That is the lowest price since August 20, and it sits right on Bitcoin's 200-day average of $73,154, calculated from CoinMarketCap daily closes. Thirty minutes earlier, at 12:10 p.m. ET, Solana bottomed at $81.82, its lowest level since August 19, and Aave at $121.21.

10:45 a.m. ET: Ethereum touches $2,010. Ether came within $10 of the $2,000 mark, its lowest level since August 19. Ether positions make up the largest share of the day's liquidations: $257.6 million, ahead of Bitcoin with $204.6 million.

9:30 a.m. ET: the opening bell adds pressure. As US stocks opened, Bitcoin slipped to $73,698 and Solana to $83.61. A short rebound to $74,298 at 10:00 a.m. ET did not hold; by 11:00 a.m. ET Bitcoin was back at $73,153.

8:30 a.m. ET: the CPI shock. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 0.4 percent in October and core prices, which exclude food and energy, 0.3 percent, each a tenth of a point above forecasts (BLS release). Within five minutes Bitcoin fell from $74,278 to $73,883, and Ether lost 1.5 percent. Our analysis of the October CPI and the December hike covers the report in detail.

Why is crypto crashing today? Markets now price a Fed hike, not a cut

The crypto crash today is a rates story. Even before the inflation report, traders leaned towards a hike at the Fed's meeting on December 9: after Friday's jobs report, the CME FedWatch tool put the chance of a quarter-point move at 76.8 percent, 24/7 Wall St. reported. By Tuesday's close, FedWatch priced a quarter-point hike at 88 percent and a half point at 11 percent. A quarter-point hike would lift the federal funds target range from 3.75 to 4.00 percent to a range of 4.00 to 4.25 percent.

Higher rates hit crypto through two channels. Safe yields compete with risk: a two-year Treasury now pays 4.73 percent without any price risk. And leverage gets more expensive: when prices fall, traders who borrowed to bet on rising prices are forced out, and their forced sales push prices further down. That is why 81 percent of today's liquidations hit long positions. Spot Bitcoin ETFs added to the pressure before today: they recorded $1.28 billion in net outflows last week, the most since June, according to FXStreet. How Bitcoin behaved the last time the Fed turned this hawkish, in 2022, is in our piece on Bitcoin in a financial crisis and recession.

Why is Solana down today? A high-beta coin in a risk-off market

Solana is down today because it moves harder than the market in both directions; no Solana-specific shock was behind the drop. SOL fell 4.1 percent against 2.2 percent for Bitcoin, extending a slide of 11.2 percent over 7 days and 25.3 percent over 30 days. At $82.95 it trades 6.8 percent below its 200-day average of $88.99 and 22 percent below its 50-day average of $106.71, based on CoinMarketCap daily closes. Leverage made it worse: of $37 million in Solana liquidations within 24 hours, more than 96 percent were long positions, according to CoinGlass.

The fundamental news around Solana is not negative: Formation is targeting 2027 for tokenized stocks on the network, as our report on tokenized stocks on Solana shows. In a market that is repricing interest rates, news like this does not carry the Solana price. The line traders watch is the August low: on August 19, SOL traded as low as $76.62.

Why is Aave down today? DeFi yields lose against Treasuries

Aave is down 6.1 percent today, almost three times as much as Bitcoin, and DeFi as a whole lost 4.5 percent of its market value to $71.7 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. Aave sits at the center of on-chain lending, and that business competes directly with US rates. Lenders currently earn about 4.2 percent on USDC and about 3.6 percent on USDT at Aave V3 on Ethereum, according to DefiLlama, less than the 4.73 percent a two-year Treasury yields after today's jump. Our assessment: as long as the Fed is hiking, that spread works against DeFi lending, and the governance token of the largest lending market feels it first.

The deposits are holding up better than the token. Aave's total value locked fell 2.4 percent since Monday to $16.19 billion, according to DefiLlama, while the AAVE price lost 27.8 percent in 30 days. The token now trades 17.5 percent below its 50-day average of $150.08, but still 13 percent above its 200-day average of $109.36. How the protocol works is explained in What is Aave?

Crypto crash: the levels and dates that matter now

For Bitcoin, the 200-day average around $73,150 is the line of the week. Market maker Wintermute calls the $73,000 zone key support; a daily close below it could open a move towards $68,000, and only a sustained daily close above $80,000 together with renewed ETF inflows would turn the picture constructive, FXStreet reports. Our Bitcoin price prediction for the $72,000 zone walks through the chart.

The calendar is short. The Fed decides on December 9, and until then every inflation and labor report feeds straight into the hike odds. The market has already flushed a large share of its leverage, which made the evening bounce possible. Other coins show how thin the support is: Zcash lost 16 percent in under two hours today, as our Zcash report shows, and Dogecoin trades at its lowest level since November 2023 (Dogecoin price at $0.067).

What it means for you: A sell-off driven by interest rates rarely ends with one data release. Leverage turns a 2 percent drop into forced selling, so position size matters more than timing. If you buy or sell during the volatility, use a regulated platform with clear fees: our crypto exchange comparison lists the major platforms, and the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges shows the providers licensed under MiCA. This live ticker is market information, not investment advice; crypto assets can lose value quickly.