In a quick turn of events, Bitcoin dipped below the $65,000 mark, despite major stock indices reaching record highs driven by expectations of rate cuts.
The correction in Bitcoin’s price over the past day resulted in significant liquidation of long positions on centralized exchanges.
Despite major stock indices hitting record highs, with the Dow gaining about 0.7% and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite adding roughly 0.3% and 0.2% respectively on Thursday, Bitcoin witnessed a downturn, slipping below the $64,000 mark during Friday’s trading session.
This dip in Bitcoin’s price comes amidst positive macroeconomic sentiment fueled by signals of rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve and a surprise rate cut by the Swiss National Bank.
The surprise reduction in Switzerland’s key interest rate to 1.5%, following a decrease in Swiss inflation to 1.2% in February, marked the first such action by one of the world’s major central banks since the onset of efforts to counter post-pandemic price surges.
As of 8:46 a.m. Eastern Time, Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization, witnessed a decline of more than 4% over the previous 24 hours, with its value resting at $63,990. This decrease reflects ongoing market volatility and liquidations.
Market Volatility and Liquidations
The correction in Bitcoin’s price over the past day triggered significant liquidation of long positions on centralized exchanges, with over $54 million in Bitcoin positions being liquidated, the majority of which—over $40 million—were long positions, as per CoinGlass data.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether, also experienced a 3.4% downturn in the past day, trading at $3,417 at 8:46 a.m. ET. SOL, the native coin of the Solana network, saw a sharper decline of over 8% during the same period, according to The Block’s Prices Page.
The overall cryptocurrency market witnessed over $134 million in liquidated long positions in the last 24 hours, contributing to a total of $192 million in liquidations across various centralized exchanges, according to data.
Declining Bitcoin Exchange Reserves
Bitcoin exchange reserves have reached a multi-week low, indicating a trend of investors withdrawing their coins for long-term holding.
Data from CryptoQuant shows an outflow of over 44,600 bitcoins in the past month, resulting in exchange reserves hitting a multi-week low of just over 2 million bitcoins.
This outflow from exchanges to cold storage has been a consistent trend since the beginning of the year, possibly influenced by the increase in Bitcoin’s price and inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Over the last 24 hours, the GM 30 Index, which tracks the performance of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, has dipped by 3.98% to reach 141.78.
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