It’s been a volatile half-day on the crypto markets, with Bitcoin and Ethereum hitting all-time highs overnight on worse-than-expected US inflation data and then dipping hours later.

BTC rose from around US$66,800 to high as US$69,000 around 1am AEDT, after the US Labor Department released figures showing consumer prices increased 6.2 per cent for the 12 months to October 31, the biggest increase in three decades. Ethereum hit an all-time high of $US4,878 around the same time.

But hours later both cryptos dropped amid reports that Chinese property developer Evergrande had defaulted on some of its bond payments.

BTC quickly dropped 9.2 per cent to US$62,858 at 8.30am, while Ether dropped 8.0 per cent to US$4,458. That hardly constitutes a crash, or even a correction, but it was enough to rekt a great many overleveraged crypto traders.

Nearly 170,000 derivatives positions had been liquidated in the past 24 hours, with a total face value of US$750 million, according to Coinglass. That’s the most since October 27, when US$810 million in positions were liquidated.

“People got greedy & start(ed) opening new longs at all time high,” wrote Coin Signals. “Evergrande Bank default news came, Whales saw (an) opportunity to Flush the late long position to reset the market.”

Crypto market down 3.6%

At lunchtime (Sydney time), BTC had recovered somewhat, changing hands for just over US$65,000, down 3.4 per cent from 24 hours ago. Ethereum was trading for $4,623, down 2.5 per cent.

All of the top 20 coins aside from Chainlink were lower, but none by double digits. LINK was up marginally, by 0.7 per cent.

Overall the total crypto market was down 3.6 per cent to US$2.8 trillion, according to Coinmarketcap.

Coingecko

Secret was the biggest loser in the top 100, falling 13.9 per cent to US$7.73.

A number of mid-cap coins held up well, with internet-of-things crypto platform IoTex pumping 70.7 per cent to US21.9c, and earlier this morning hitting an all-time high of 25c.

Mina Protocol was up 22.7 per cent to US$5.25, Kadena gained 19.5 per cent to US$23.81, and Loopring was up 12.1 per cent to US$3.10, and overnight hit an all-time high of US$3.75.

Kadena is now up 173 per cent in the past seven days, while Loopring has gained 159.8 per cent in the same timeframe.