$BTC crashes below $53K wiping out $600M in leveraged longs
A sudden crypto market nosedive has seen over $600 million in leveraged long positions wiped out, as Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies tumbled sharply.
The price of Bitcoin crashed as low as $52,500 on Aug. 5, in a sudden drawdown that saw BTC tumble 10% from $58,350 in less than two hours.
The last time BTC traded below $53,000 was on Feb. 26 earlier this year, as the price rallied following the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States.
The sharp downward move has now seen over $740 million in leverage positions wiped out across the crypto market in the last 24 hours, with just over $644 million in leveraged longs being liquidated, per CoinGlass data.
Notably, traders looking to gain leveraged exposure to Ether were the hardest hit, with over $256 million in ETH longs cleaned up, while $231 million in BTC longs were forcibly closed.
There has been a significant increase in the open interest for ETH over the last few months, with traders flocking to gain exposure to the asset in the lead-up to and aftermath of the approval of spot Ether ETFs in the US.
The sharp downturn in crypto asset prices came amid a sharp sell-off in the Japanese stock market, the Nikkei 225, which is currently down 7.1% in early trading hours.
On Aug. 2 Japanese bank stocks notched their worst day of performance since 2008, buffeted by a decision from the country's central bank to hike interest rates.
The sudden flash crash briefly saw the total crypto market capitalization wipe out as much as $500 billion in the last three days, the largest 72-hour wipeout in well over a year.
Several market commentators have traced back the recent turmoil back to weak jobs data in the United States, slowed growth among market-leading tech companies in the stock market as well as concerns of mass selling from crypto trading firm Jump Crypto