Bitcoin’s price fell below $61,000 on Monday as downward pressure intensified, and the market saw more than $320 million in total liquidations within 24 hours as a result.
With bulls unable to hold key price levels as BTC trades lower, today’s decline has buyers staring at a potential drop to the psychologically important $60,000 level.
The bloodbath can also be seen across the altcoin market, with Ethereum failing to hold above the $3,300 level. Meanwhile, Solana, BNB, and XRP all gave up significant portions of recent gains. Uniswap and Maker, which are down 12% and 9% in the past 24 hours, are the biggest losers among the top 50 coins by market.
Liquidations amounted to more than $320 million during the past 24 hours
With Bitcoin falling above $62,000 on Monday, total liquidations across the cryptocurrency market surpassed $300 million.
With the price of Bitcoin below $61,000, and losses likely to continue, the elimination of leveraged long trades has increased to more than $324 million. More than $286 million are long positions, while $36 million are short positions.
according to Data from CoinglasNearly $132 million of the liquidations are allocated to Bitcoin.
The vast majority of rekt traders’ long positions represent approximately $122 million in 24 hours while liquidated short positions represent approximately $9.9 million. According to market data, over $95 million came from liquidated long trades in the last 12 hours.
Overall, more than 85,440 traders were liquidated in the last 24 hours. The largest single liquidation order during this period occurred as of 12:30 PM ET on June 24 on Binance – a $15.36 million burn on the BTC/USDT pair.
Why did the price of Bitcoin fall sharply today?
On June 24, the trustee of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange MT Gox announced that the long-awaited payment to creditors would begin in July. With more than $9 billion worth of Bitcoin sitting on the defunct exchange slated for distribution, investors reacted to the news quickly and harshly.
Bitcoin’s price fell more than 5% following the news, surpassing previous support levels amid fears of potential selling pressure hitting the market. The downward pressure also comes amid recent selling by a portfolio linked to the German government.
Earlier this year, German police confiscated nearly 50,000 bitcoins worth about $2.1 billion at the time.
Bitcoin’s gains over the past months mean that the total value of the coins has reached more than $3 billion. But data from Arkham Intelligence shows that the wallet recently sold a large number of bitcoins, which likely contributed to the selling.
Miners have also sold off a chunk, with IntoTheBlock data showing around 30,000 bitcoins were sold after the halving.