Bitcoin’s August 4 selloff exposed crypto’s role as the weekend risk market

Bitcoin’s selloff deepened on Sunday, August 4, 2024, as the continuously traded cryptocurrency market absorbed mounting concern about the global economy before major stock exchanges reopened.

Reuters reported at 3:48 p.m. Eastern time that bitcoin was recently trading at $59,357, down approximately 5.1% after also declining on August 3. The report said bitcoin had fallen alongside global equities and was nearly 20% below its March 2024 high. That was a point-in-time market snapshot, not an official closing price: bitcoin has no universal closing auction, and the Reuters report did not identify the exchange, composite index or precise comparison timestamp behind its percentage calculation.

The decline accelerated during the U.S. evening. CoinDesk reported at 9:29 p.m. Eastern time that bitcoin had fallen near $53,000 as Asian markets began their Monday session. The two observations are not contradictory; they capture separate stages of a fast-moving decline on August 4.

A market open without a closing bell

The timing mattered because cryptocurrency markets trade through weekends while most stocks, bonds and regulated U.S. fund products do not. Bitcoin and ether therefore became immediately available instruments for investors reducing risk after developments that had accumulated since the preceding traditional-market sessions.

The contemporaneous evidence established correlation, not a single cause. On August 2, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nonfarm payroll employment increased by 114,000 in July and that unemployment rose to 4.3%. Those figures intensified concern about weakening U.S. growth after equity markets had already declined.

Japan supplied another important part of the macroeconomic backdrop. On July 31, the Bank of Japan voted 7–2 to guide the uncollateralized overnight call rate to around 0.25%, effective August 1, while also announcing a reduction in government-bond purchases. A higher Japanese policy rate could pressure trades financed with inexpensive yen, but the surviving August 4 record does not measure how much cryptocurrency selling came directly from carry-trade unwinds.

What can and cannot be attributed

Market commentary also circulated around large cryptocurrency transfers associated with Jump Crypto. Transfers into an exchange can precede sales, but they can also represent custody changes, internal rebalancing, collateral movements or over-the-counter settlement. Without matched execution records, wallet movements alone do not establish that a particular firm caused the market decline.

The defensible conclusion is narrower: bitcoin’s August 4 decline occurred during a broad retreat from risky assets, then intensified as Asian trading opened. Because crypto traded continuously, it registered that shift before Monday cash sessions in Japan, Europe and the United States could fully reflect it.

That role cut against the strongest version of the claim that bitcoin consistently behaves as a short-term haven during financial stress. One episode cannot settle bitcoin’s long-run monetary character, but the August 4 price action showed that, during this particular shock, traders treated it as liquid risk exposure rather than as an asset insulated from macroeconomic anxiety.

Later context: leverage amplified the move

Coinbase Institutional’s August 9 review described a sharp downward move at approximately 9 p.m. Eastern time on August 4. Its one-minute observations at 9:10 p.m. showed bitcoin falling 2.98%, ether 8.34% and solana 2.82%. Coinbase also reported nearly $1.1 billion of perpetual-futures liquidations over a 24-hour period, citing Coinglass, including $281 million of bitcoin long liquidations and $261 million of ether long liquidations attributed to August 4.

Those figures are later context, not information established by the afternoon Reuters snapshot. The 24-hour measurement crossed venue and calendar boundaries, depended on exchange-reported liquidation data and extended into August 5. It nevertheless supports the interpretation that leverage helped turn the August 4 retreat into a faster, self-reinforcing market dislocation.