Bitcoin fell below $62,000 on Thursday morning, Hong Kong time. More than $1.5 billion in leveraged positions have been closed in the cryptocurrency market in the last 24 hours. The acceleration of compulsory sales brought about one of the sharpest declines in the market in recent months.
Bitcoin and ether came to the fore in liquidations
According to CoinGlass data, the positions of more than 208 thousand investors were liquidated in the cryptocurrency markets. While over 800 million dollars of the total loss was due to bitcoin, the liquidation amount on the ether side reached 386 million dollars.
Mini dictionary: Liquidation is the automatic closing of the position by the exchange in case of insufficient collateral in leveraged transactions. CoinGlass is known as a data platform that monitors liquidation, open position and derivative data flow in the cryptocurrency markets.
CoinGlass data showed that more than 208 thousand investors were liquidated in the last 24 hours, losses exceeded $ 1.5 billion, and most of this occurred in bitcoin and ether positions.
This sharp pullback in the market further increased the selling pressure in transactions using high leverage. Automatic shutdowns that came into effect as the price dropped caused the downward movement to deepen.
ETF outflows point to weakness in institutional demand
The wave of liquidations coincided with continued weakness in corporate demand. Investors pulled nearly $1 billion from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs this week, according to SoSoValue data. Thus, the net outflow series in funds moved to a new threshold.
US spot bitcoin ETFs stand out as investment vehicles that directly track the price of bitcoin and are traded through the traditional exchange infrastructure. The outflow of money in these products is monitored as an important indicator of institutional and traditional investor appetite.
Presto Research noted that bitcoin’s weakness may reflect increased competition for investor capital rather than a cause specific to the cryptocurrency market alone.
All eyes on interest rate expectations and alternative assets
In a note published on Thursday, Presto Research stated that the major withdrawals seen in bitcoin this year occurred in the same period as the rises in gold and artificial intelligence stocks. According to the company, this picture was shaped as investors reduced their expectations for interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve.
In the research note, it was emphasized that if this relationship continues, the possible recovery in bitcoin may depend on broader macroeconomic conditions rather than developments specific to the cryptocurrency market. Accordingly, the easing of inflation concerns and the re-strengthening of the orientation towards liquidity-sensitive assets may be decisive.
The latest price movement once again revealed that the search for short-term direction in the cryptocurrency market is not limited to intra-industry developments. In particular, ETF flows, interest rate expectations and investors’ tendency towards alternative assets were among the main headlines of the pressure on bitcoin.
