Bitcoin price tanks by 15% in 10 minutes causing $226M of liquidations on BitMEX

Bitcoin fell from $9,500 to $8,100 on Saturday, posting a 14.6% loss in just 10 short minutes. The price has since recovered covered slightly to nearly $8,800.

Source: Tradingview

Following the sudden drop, liquidations of BTC perpetual swap reached $226 million on BitMEX.

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Source: Skew

The plunge brought the digital asset's month-long rally to a halt. In April, the bitcoin price jumped over 38% from around $6,200 to $8,600. The price continued to rise in early May and had been flirting around the $10,000 level since May 7. 

Although bitcoin briefly traversed $10,000 on May 8, the price soon collapsed and now back to its early late April level.

Adding to the market volatility, the bitcoin halving is just two days away. As the block reward decreases from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25 BTC, many miners may choose to switch off some mining machines when profit margins become unfavorable. 

About Author

Celia joined The Block as a reporter after earning her BA in the History of Science from the University of Chicago. Having spent years pondering over why 2+2 cannot equal 5, she is interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics, computation, and cryptography. She also had a very brief stint at Crunchbase News.