Crypto Faces Nearly $1 Billion In Liquidations As Bitcoin, Ethereum Crash

Data shows the crypto derivatives market has suffered a massive amount of liquidations following the plunge that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other assets have seen.

Bitcoin & Ethereum Are Both Down More Than 5% For The Past Week

The second half of May so far has seen a reversal of trend for the cryptocurrency sector, and the trajectory doesn’t appear to be changing as the month draws to a close. Over the last 24 hours, Bitcoin and other digital assets have seen another retrace, resetting the market by many weeks.

As the below chart shows, BTC has returned to the $73,400 level following its drop of 3.3% over the past day.

At its lowest during this plunge, Bitcoin even briefly slipped under the $73,000 mark, something that hasn’t happened since the first half of April. Although the coin has seen a minor rebound, it remains more than 5% down on the week.

Ethereum has faced an even worse outcome inside this window, being in a loss of over 6%. Currently, the second-largest token is floating around $1,990, which is the lowest that it has gone since late March.

Other assets in the sector have also seen varying degrees of drawdown, with some like ZCash even being down more than 8% during the last 24 hours alone. All this volatility has resulted in chaos over at the derivatives side of the market.

Crypto Market Liquidations Have Hit $930 Million

According to data from CoinGlass, a large amount of cryptocurrency liquidations have occurred on derivatives exchanges during the past day. “Liquidation” here refers to the forceful closure that any open contract undergoes after it has amassed losses of a specific percentage (as defined by the platform).

Below is a table that breaks down the latest liquidation numbers for the market.

As is visible, the derivatives sector has faced a total of $928.8 million in liquidations over the last 24 hours. Since cryptocurrencies tend to be volatile, mass flushes aren’t exactly an uncommon sight in the market, but the latest squeeze still stands out for its unusual intensity.

The price action inside this period has mostly been toward the downside, so it’s not surprising to see that bullish bets made up for an overwhelming share of the liquidations ($869.3 million).

In terms of the individual assets, Bitcoin and Ethereum were the largest contributors to the squeeze like usual.

From the heatmap, it’s visible that contracts related to Bitcoin and Ethereum have witnessed $365.1 million and $242 million in liquidations, respectively. The fall-off to the next largest coin is massive, with Solana ranking third with just $26 million in contracts involved.

The long squeeze may not entirely be unexpected as highly positive funding rates were already pointing to bullish-heavy positioning in the market.

Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com