Bitcoin (BTC) sold off into the early Asian trading session on Thursday as the drop to $72,600 produced significant liquidation of leveraged positions across the crypto market.
Key takeaways:
Bitcoin price deviated 4.5% from its daily high of $76,050 on Wednesday, dropping to a six-week low of $72,620.Overleveraged crypto traders were liquidated out of nearly $935 billion in the past 24 hours.Traders say Bitcoin needs to hold above $70,000 to avoid a deeper correction toward $65,000 or lower.
Bitcoin price hits 6-week lows below $73,000
The BTC/USD pair fell as low as $72,620 on Thursday, reversing all gains made since April 13 after the US reportedly carried out a new wave of military strikes on Iran.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
This was accompanied by significant drops in other top-cap cryptocurrencies, wiping out more than $80 billion from the crypto market over the last 24 hours.
Related: Bitcoin falls further as BTC miners pivot to AI, pro-crypto legislation stalls
The derivatives market suffered a similar fate. More than $874 million in long positions were liquidated, with Bitcoin accounting for $348.5 million of that total. Ether (ETH) followed with $228.5 million in long liquidations.
Across the board, a total of $935.6 million was wiped out of the market in short and long positions, as shown in the figure below.
Crypto liquidations (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass
The single biggest liquidation occurred on Hyperliquid, where a $15.34 million BTC-USD long position was closed.
Additional data from CoinGlass showed a slight drop in Bitcoin’s futures open interest (OI) over the last 24 hours across all exchanges. The decline was more pronounced on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and BingX, whose Bitcoin OI has fallen by 9.8% and 9% over the last 24 hours, respectively.
Even though futures longs (buyers) and shorts (sellers) are always matched, declining OI suggests reduced leverage and market participation, often signaling bearish sentiment. For example, a 30% decrease in OI between Jan. 14 and Feb. 6 was accompanied by a 38% drop in BTC price.
Meanwhile, US-based spot…
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