Bitcoin traders saw over $230 million liquidated on BitMEX crypto exchange following huge volatility over the past 24 hours. The massive price movements hit both bears and bulls alike as long and short trades were liquidated on the top bitcoin derivatives exchange.
Bitcoin has experienced some extreme up and down price movements over the last 24 hours that has left the cryprocurrency’s traders greatly exposed. The virtual asset’s price rose sharply to cross the $10,000 barrier on Monday before falling by close to $1,500 within an hour. These sudden and substantial price movements left a number of traders greatly exposed. Close to $230 million in 24-hour margin calls facing liquidations.
According to data gathered by cryptocurrency analyst Cryptometer the exposure was spread almost evenly between long and short positions on BitMEX. About $111.5 million worth of bitcoin long positions and $111.3 million of short positions were liquidated. Additional liquidations from altcoin positions adds up the figure to $230 million.
The liquidation of both short and long positions happened within a very short time frame. Initially short sellers werehit by a rapid gain of more than 8% within four hours as bitcoin price moved from $9560 to over $10,300 in June 2.
Liquidation of long positions was even more swift as the bitcoin price fell within four minutes after its sustained stay over $10,200 failed to sustain. The leading cryptocurrency value fell by about 10% within this short duration to around $9,150.
Despite the sharp decline, bitcoin investors, crypto experts and traders still remain positive that the virtual asset’s value will consolidate and even rise further in the near term. Leading crypto experts and analysts believe that the sudden crash was caused by a misbalance of the bitcoin futures. Accordingly, the misbalanching results from an overly enthusiastic derivative market that expected the bitcoin price to keep rising after surpassing the $10,000 level. The overleveraged position resulted in a ‘long squeeze’ that led the virtual asset’s price to crash.
Nonetheless, bitcoin bullish fundamentals are still intact with analysts expecting the leading cryptocurrency to maintain an upward momentum. So far bitcoin yearly gains remain above its support level and is showing strong resilience. The digital asset is also decoupling from mainstream financial assets as indicated by its recent performance.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
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