Bitcoin soared past $49,000 hours ago after the first ETFs reached the US market but plummeted by over three grand in the following minutes.
This resulted in a lot of pain for over-leveraged traders, as the total value of liquidated positions has soared to well over $300 million on a daily scale.
January 10, 2024, will go down in history as one of the most prominent dates for the cryptocurrency industry as the US SEC finally greenlighted spot exchange-traded funds tracking the performance of the largest digital asset.
As the approvals didn’t go without hiccups, the asset faced enhanced volatility with several large price movements. All eyes were on the US today, as the ETFs were set to go live on a few stock exchanges.
The first few hours were highly successful as these products attracted massive volumes of roughly $2 billion in hours. This impacted BTC’s price, which went on a roll and shot above $49,000 for the first time in almost two years.
However, this is where the situation changed once again, and Bitcoin dumped by more than three grand within an hour or so. As a result, the cryptocurrency slumped to under $46,000, and most alternative coins joined the wild ride.
Somewhat expected, today’s movements, combined with yesterday’s fiasco, have harmed over-leveraged traders. Data from CoinGlass shows that the 24-hour liquidation numbers are well above $340 million and over $50 million in the past hour alone.
More than 100,000 traders have been liquidated, with the single-largest position taking place on Binance – worth $6.6 million.