Crypto market sees $665 million in daily liquidations as bitcoin tanks below $55,000

Quick Take

  • Bitcoin fell 7.4% in the past 24 hours to trade at $54,422.
  • Defunct crypto exchange Mt Gox moved nearly 47,229 BTC to another wallet address on Thursday night.

The cryptocurrency market saw over $665 million liquidations in the past 24 hours as bitcoin faces heavy selling pressure with Mt Gox continuing to make movements for payout.

Bitcoin dropped 7.4% in the past 24 hours to $54,422 at the time of publication, according to The Block’s bitcoin price page. The price fall came after defunct crypto exchange moved about $2.7 billion worth of bitcoin as it prepares for its payout to creditors, set to start early this month.

In the past 24 hours, a total of 230,541 traders were liquidated, with the total liquidations across centralized exchanges amounting to $665.8 million, according to data from Coinglass.

Bitcoin was the leading cryptocurrency in the liquidations, with over $222.1 million liquidated in the past 24 hours. Among these bitcoin liquidations, about $181.8 million of them were long positions.

Ether also faced significant liquidations, with $163.4 million liquidated, of which $143.3 million were long positions, the data showed. The price of ether fell 10.57% in the last 24 hours to $2,890, according to The Block's price page.

Crypto liquidations occur when a trader’s positions in the cryptocurrency market are forcibly closed due to significant losses or a lack of sufficient margin to meet the maintenance requirements.

On Thursday night, Mt Gox moved 47,228.7 BTC ($2.71 billion) to a wallet address, which soon sent back 2,702 BTC and transferred 44,527 BTC to another address, according to data from blockchain tracker Arkham. A few hours later, another address related to Mt Gox moved 1,545 BTC ($85 million) to a hot wallet on Bitbank, Arkham data showed.

Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research, said that the selling pressure may be stronger for BCH than BTC, “given BCH doesn't have a strong investor base like BTC, so the [Mt Gox] creditors will probably seek to cash out immediately just like any other airdrop.”

“Volatility and periods of selling do not change Bitcoin’s core thesis,” Ben Caselin, chief marketing officer of VALR, a Pantera-backed crypto exchange, told The Block. “With any luck, we can expect prices in the lower 50,000s or even slightly lower for weeks… but nothing fundamental has changed about the market structure and current price movements are really only a concern to short-term speculators.”


Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Timmy Shen is an Asia editor for The Block. Previously, he wrote about crypto and Web3 for Forkast.News from Taiwan after spending more than three years in Beijing covering finance, entertainment business and current affairs at Caixin Global and Chinese tech at TechNode. His China-related reporting has also appeared in The Guardian. When he's not chasing headlines, you'll find him savoring hot pot and shabu shabu in a Taipei local haunt. Timmy holds an MS degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Send tips to [email protected] or get in touch on X/Telegram @timmyhmshen.

Editor

To contact the editor of this story:
Danny Park at
[email protected]