Bitcoin (BTC) Slides to Below $86,000 in Risk-Off Start to December

Almost $1 billion of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated during another sharp drop in prices on Monday that brought fresh momentum to a wide-ranging selloff.

Bitcoin slid as much as 8% to $83,824 in New York, bringing its decline since early October to almost 30%. Ether dropped as 10% to as low as $2,719, and is down 36% over the past seven weeks. The market downturn has been even tougher on smaller, less liquid tokens that traders often gravitate toward because of their higher volatility and typical outperformance during rallies. A MarketVector index tracking the bottom half of the largest 100 digital assets is down almost 70% this year.