Crypto liquidations have hit $1.4 billion over the past 24 hours, Coinglass data shows.
Leveraged traders with long positions were left reeling after a sharp pullback in Bitcoin's price—and harsher declines among altcoins.
The Bitcoin price sank to lows of $92,000 on Friday, meaning the world's biggest cryptocurrency is now 13.4% off all-time highs set just three days ago.
It was an even worse picture among digital assets with smaller market caps.
Ethereum was down 16% over a 24-hour period at one point, with XRP plunging 18% and Dogecoin 26% over the same timeframe.
One trader in the Wealth Group crypto Discord community said they believe—when recent liquidations are combined—"we have probably seen the largest liquidation event in crypto history over the past few weeks."
Rough total liquidations on Coinglass for the past 3 weeks is almost $10billion (from Cex's)
I remember Cat saying on December 9/10th that the total real liquidations were more like $10billion, 1/10th of real numbers.
If that's correct then we have probably seen the largest liq… pic.twitter.com/fZkR7YiG16
— Pat (@PattaTrades) December 20, 2024
Over on Wall Street, data from SoSoValue shows $680 million flowed out of spot Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday—a record figure not seen since these products launched back in January.
The pullback in the crypto markets began when Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell suggested that the U.S. central bank may cut interest rates far less frequently in 2025 than first thought.
Plenty of pain was also inflicted on the stock market, with declines across the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 in New York, and London's FTSE.
Double-digit declines in such a short space of time will be an uncomfortable experience for the institutional and retail investors who are new to crypto. But some traders have insisted this is a blip on the way to new record highs next year.
With pro-crypto President Donald Trump set to enter the White House in January, and ETFs continuing to buy BTC much faster than it can be mined, Bitcoiners argue there are still plenty of reasons to be bullish.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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