Bitcoin wobbles at $57K as liquidations reach $295M

Key Takeaways

• Bitcoin and Ether experienced significant liquidations, totaling over $295 million in the past 24 hours.
• Despite market downturns, the options market remains optimistic about Ether's future price increases.

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Bitcoin fell below $60,000 amid heavy selling pressure, reaching a recent low of around $57,800. The sell-off triggered over $77 million in Bitcoin long liquidations across centralized exchanges in the past 24 hours, contributing to a total of $295 million in market-wide liquidations.

The broader crypto market experienced substantial losses, with ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, facing over $71 million in liquidations, of which $62 million were long positions. Solana’s SOL and Dogecoin (DOGE) led losses among major tokens.

Fears of looming selling pressure from the defunct Mt. Gox exchange and possible miner sales contributed to the market decline. Mt. Gox is set to begin distributing assets stolen from clients in a 2014 hack in July 2024, potentially adding selling pressure to both Bitcoin and peripheral crypto markets.

According to a liquidation heat map from CoinGlass, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) dominate the dominating with $92M and $72M in liquidations respectively, followed by smaller amounts for other cryptocurrencies over the past 24 hours. The map visualizes the concentration and scale of liquidations across different digital assets. Top liquidations occur from Binance, OKX, and Huobi.

Trading firm QCP Capital anticipates a subdued market in the next quarter due to uncertainty surrounding the Mt. Gox bitcoin supply release.

“We anticipate a subdued Q3 for BTC as the market remains uncertain around the supply from the Mt. Gox release,” QCP stated in a Thursday broadcast on Telegram.

Despite the recent drawdown, derivatives traders are positioning for price increases in the coming months, particularly for ether. QCP Capital analysts noted that “the options market is still optimistic as we continue to see interest heavily skewed towards ether calls for September and December expiries.”

The market downturn has also highlighted signs of miner capitulation. According to a separate report from CryptoQuant, total daily revenues among miners have decreased from $79 million on March 6 to $29 million currently, indicating that miners have been underpaid since at least April this year.

As the crypto market grapples with these challenges, traders and investors remain focused on potential catalysts for a price reversal, including the possibility of approved spot Ethereum ETFs finally launching by mid-July, compounded with historical patterns associated with miner capitulation.

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