The cryptocurrency market saw a significant sell-off today with Bitcoin and most major altcoins charting considerable declines across the board. The broader market lost around $120 billion of its total capitalization, which currently sits at roughly $2.63 trillion.
Bitcoin’s Price Tumbles Below $65K
Bitcoin lost around $5,000 throughout the past day, crashing from almost $70,000 to $67,000 in minutes. This sudden drop triggered a wave of liquidations, with the total number surpassing $500 million in the past 24 hours, where the majority were long positions. Bitcoin’s price fell further, tumbling $5,000 in 24 hours to trade below $65K, a loss of around 7% over two days.
The sell-off in Bitcoin was attributed to rising Treasury yields, strength in the U.S. dollar, and stronger-than-expected economic data, which led to a repricing of Fed rate hike expectations. Additionally, a large Bitcoin holder transferred more than 4,000 BTC to the Bitfinex exchange late Monday night, signaling a boost in selling activity.
Majors Take a Beating
The altcoin market was entirely painted in red, with most coins performing worse than Bitcoin. Ethereum lost 5%, Cardano (ADA) was down 5.3%, Avalanche (AVAX) lost 8%, and Solana (SOL) crashed 6% daily.
Meme coins also retraced considerably, with Dogecoin losing 9%, Shiba Inu (SHIB) down 6.4%, and Dogwifhat (WIF), the Solana-based meme sensation, dropping 15.3%.
However, not all coins were in the red. Core (CORE) was up a whopping 23.3%, while Bittensor’s TAO gained 10.6%, emerging as the top performers for the day.
Liquidations and Market Impact The sudden 5% drawdown in Bitcoin’s price led to over $165 million in leveraged crypto positions being liquidated in less than two hours. Bitcoin and Ethereum longs accounted for the bulk of the liquidations, with roughly $50 million and $40 million, respectively.
Dogecoin and Solana also saw significant liquidations, with $6 million and $4 million in long positions wiped out, respectively.
Overall, longs took on more than $400 million in liquidations, while shorts took on a relatively smaller $85 million.
Tether, the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, also experienced a brief wobble around 1%, falling from its $1 peg to $0.988 on some price tracking sites.
Stocks tied to the performance of Bitcoin, such as Coinbase, MicroStrategy, Marathon Digital, Riot Platforms, and CleanSpark, were dragged down, with losses ranging from 4% to 7%.
