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Crypto Market Crashes: $665 Million Liquidated as Bitcoin Crashes
The cryptocurrency market has seen a significant decline in the last 24 hours, with over $665 million in liquidations according to CoinGlass data.
CoinMarketCap data shows the world’s most important cryptocurrency by market capitalization Bitcoin (BTC) has seen a 7.4% decline, trading at $54,422 at the time of reporting. This price drop coincides with the movement of about $2.7 billion worth of Bitcoin from the defunct Mt Gox exchange, in preparation for creditor payments scheduled to begin this month.
Coinglass data also reveals that 230,541 traders were hit by liquidations on centralized exchanges. Bitcoin led these liquidations with $222.1 million, of which $181.8 million were long positions.
Ethereum also faced significant pressure, with $163.4 million liquidated, including $143.3 million in long positions. Ether price dropped 10.57% to $2,890 in the past 24 hours.
The Ghost of Mt. Gox Still Haunts Cryptocurrencies
Data provided by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence show that Mount Gox transferred 47,228.7 BTC ($2.71 billion) to a wallet address, which subsequently redistributed the funds. Another Mt Gox-related address transferred 1,545 BTC ($85 million) to a Bitbank hot wallet.
The news follows Mt. Gox moving 12,240 BTCwhich was then worth about $840 million, to a new wallet address in late May. Mt. Gox was once the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange, handling the majority of global Bitcoin transactions in its heyday.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Tokyo, it played a key role in the early cryptocurrency ecosystem. However, Mt. Gox fell in 2014 due to a combination of security flaws, technical issues, and a massive hack.
The exchange announced that approximately 850,000 BTC belonging to customers and the company were missing, presumably stolen. Unable to recover from this catastrophic loss, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and the United States.
Presto Research’s Peter Chung has suggested that Bitcoin Cash (BCH) could face stronger selling pressure than Bitcoin due to its smaller investor base. Despite the market volatility, VALR CMO Ben Caselin says that Bitcoin’s fundamental thesis remains unchanged. He told The Block in a recent interview:
Volatility and sell-offs don’t change Bitcoin’s fundamental thesis. […] With a bit of luck, we can expect prices in the low 50,000 range or even slightly lower for weeks… But nothing fundamental has changed in the market structure and the current price movements are really only a concern for short-term speculators.