Crypto market liquidations spiked to their highest point in a week on Wednesday as the price of Bitcoin sunk below $60,000.
In the past 24 hours, more than 74,000 traders were liquidated to the tune of $208 million, CoinGlass data shows.
The majority of those — some $184 million — struck investors holding long positions that had bet on prices going up.
The largest liquidations afflicted Ethereum investors, at $55.5 million, almost entirely in long positions, data shows.
Ongoing issues surrounding U.S. monetary policy, geopolitical tensions, and the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November are projected to impact the top cryptocurrency's price throughout 2024.
Bitcoin dropped from around $62,200 to as low as $59,425 in intraday trading. The asset has since clawed back losses above $60,200 but is still down 3% over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Ethereum is down by 3% over the same period, falling from a Wednesday high of $3,425 to as low as $3,254. It's now trading at $3,300.
Solana, the world's fifth-largest crypto by market cap, took the largest hit among the top 10 coins, down roughly 8% to $140. Solana had been riding high on New York-based investment management firm VanEck's filing of its “Solana Trust” exchange-traded fund late last month.
Top cryptocurrencies have fallen over the past month. Ethereum is down over 12% across 30 days despite simmering interest in the debut of Ethereum spot ETFs.
Some analysts predict the new financial products could begin trading by mid-July, with at least one firm predicting the price of ETH will subsequently take off. Bitcoin is down 12% over the same period.
To be sure, analysts still see further price gains this year, with the current market cooling representing a precursor to another major price surge in the coming months, Decrypt reported Monday.
On Wednesday, analytics firm CryptoQuant released a report examining Bitcoin mining metrics and flagged conditions for a bottoming of prices at current levels.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair.