Bitcoin and Ethereum dominate cryptocurrency with $145m liquidation day.
Bitcoin and Ethereum dominated the cryptocurrency market as more than 54,000 traders experienced losses due to leveraged positions being wiped out. During this time, the total market cap came close to reaching $2.1 trillion.
According to CoinGlass, the crypto market saw over $145 million in liquidations across exchanges within a 24-hour period. Of these trades, $91 million were short positions, as most traders were anticipating lower prices.
However, despite these losses, the overall cryptocurrency market cap increased by 1.2% according to CoinGecko, causing the downside bets to be liquidated. The largest liquidation order, worth $4 million, was a Bitcoin position in a USDT pairing on Binance, the largest crypto exchange.
Traders also suffered losses of at least $70 million in both Bitcoin and Ethereum from long and short trades.
In terms of price trends, Bitcoin and Ethereum, the top cryptocurrencies based on market cap, have experienced upward movements in the past week. Over the last seven days, Bitcoin has gained 3% and Ethereum has gained 11%, reflecting a bullish market sentiment.
The approval of Bitcoin ETFs by the U.S. SEC on January 10 is believed to be a major driving force behind Bitcoin’s rally. With a price of $51,800 and a market cap of over $1 trillion, Bitcoin is now the 10th largest asset in the world. There is also anticipation surrounding the upcoming Bitcoin halving, scheduled for April.
Some experts believe that the halving, which reduces new block rewards by half, combined with the acquisition of BTC for spot Bitcoin ETFs, will create a supply shortage while demand continues to rise. This hypothesis suggests that Bitcoin’s price will experience a parabolic surge.
As for Ethereum, its current momentum is centered around a technological upgrade called Dencun. This upgrade is expected to enhance data availability for layer-2 rollups through a feature called blob, which allows L2s to include more data in each block, reducing transaction costs and improving scalability.
Dencun is set to be implemented on Ethereum’s mainnet in mid-March following successful testing on three testnets: Goerli, Sepolia, and Holesky.
