Data shows that the recent plunge in Bitcoin and altcoins has sent shockwaves through the derivatives market, resulting in massive long liquidations.
**Bitcoin Crashes to $104,000**
Last Friday was a shock for the cryptocurrency market, and it seems this Friday is continuing the trend as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have seen another leg down. The chart below illustrates BTC’s recent price action. What initially appeared to be a surge has now proven to be just a dead-cat bounce. With a plunge of over 6% in the last 24 hours, Bitcoin has returned to the $104,200 level.
Altcoins have faced even heavier losses. Ethereum, for instance, is down almost 9%, trading at around $3,700.
**Massive Liquidations Hit the Crypto Derivatives Market**
Just like last week’s crash, this downturn has caught derivatives traders off guard. According to data from CoinGlass, the cryptocurrency derivatives market has seen liquidations totaling nearly $1.2 billion in the past 24 hours.
A liquidation occurs when an open contract incurs losses beyond a certain threshold and is forcibly closed by the trading platform. During this period, the majority of the liquidity moved toward the downside, leading to a severe squeeze on long investors. Specifically, $917 million—or 77% of all liquidations—involved bullish bets.
Bitcoin-related contracts accounted for the largest portion of these liquidations, with over $431 million wiped out. Interestingly, XRP, despite having a notably larger market cap than SOL, saw only $27 million in liquidations during this volatile window. This suggests that speculative interest around XRP has not been as strong recently.
**Additional Insights: Coinbase Premium Gap Indicates Institutional Selling Pressure**
In other news, the Bitcoin crash appears to coincide with a shift to negative values on the Coinbase Premium Gap, as highlighted by CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn on X (formerly Twitter). A negative value on this indicator suggests that users on Coinbase are applying higher selling pressure than traders on other exchanges.
This shift implies that institutional entities using Coinbase could be contributing, at least in part, to the recent bearish action in the cryptocurrency market.
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*Featured image generated by Dall-E. Data sources: CryptoQuant.com, CoinGlass.com. Chart provided by TradingView.com.*
https://bitcoinist.com/crypto-liquidations-1-2-billion-bitcoin-ethereum/