The price of Bitcoin (BTC) faced a deep correction from its all-time highs during early-day trading on Tuesday. At the time of writing, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading at $63,100, down nearly 7.51% over the past 24 hours. The price drop sparked massive liquidations of leveraged crypto positions worth over $659 million on centralized exchanges (CEXs) in the last 24 hours.
According to Coinglass data, more than $538 million in longs and $120 million in short positions have been liquidated. This widespread liquidation activity has affected 245,244 traders. Most liquidations happened on Binance and OKX, with $$246 million and $238 million, respectively.
Bitcoin recorded liquidations totalling $193 million, with $148 million from long positions and $45 million from short positions. The second-largest crypto, Ethereum (ETH), also experienced an 8.14% downturn over the past day — now trading at $3,293. ETH saw liquidations amounting to $128 million, comprising $107 million from long positions and $20 million from short positions.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. saw record inflows last week. However, if demand weakens in the next day or so, it could cause BTC’s price to decline further, according to crypto analytics firm 10X Research. Some experts said BTC will fall to $55,000 in the coming weeks, even though they have a long-term bullish outlook.
John Glover, Chief Investment Office at Ledn, told CoinDesk:
“The pace of the recent appreciation makes forecasting when the correction will complete difficult, but I do look for a move lower to $55-$62k before the next leg up.”
Spot Bitcoin ETFs Hit Negative Flows as Grayscale’s GBTC Lost Over $642M
Over $642 million worth of BTC flowed out of Grayscale’s GBTC on March 18, marking the largest day of outflows for the fund since its conversion to a spot ETF on January 11. At the same time, inflows into Fidelity’s FBTC ETF — the second-largest fund — fell to just $5.9 million, its lowest day on record. Both led to a total outflow for spot BTC ETFs of $154.3 million.
The lead analyst at Australian crypto exchange Swyftx, Pav Hundal, said if spot Bitcoin ETF volumes keep dropping, there might be a correction back to the low $60,000 or high $50,000 levels.