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Bitcoin and Ethereum See Red as Markets Sag Amid Volatility

decrypt.co 01 August 2024 11:50, UTC

Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with the rest of the top 10 crypto assets by market capitalization, are looking sluggish on Thursday morning.

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is still below $65,000 and 2.2% lower than it was this time yesterday, according to CoinGecko data. Things are worse for the Ethereum price, which is 3.7% lower than it was 24 hours ago at $3,185.22. The ETH price drop is identical to that of Lido Staked Ethereum (stETH), an Ethereum liquid staking token.

In the past day, lagging prices have led to the liquidation of $225 million worth of derivatives contracts, according to Coinglass. And roughly half of them, about $100 million, have been liquidated in the past 12 hours.

When a trader gets liqudiated, it means their position in the market has been forcibly closed by an exchange or brokerage because of a margin call or insufficient collateral. Margin is particularly relevant when it comes to leveraged positions, which allow traders to control some multiple of their deposit—like opening a $10,000 position with just $1,000 in their account.

Now that it's been three straight days of losses for Bitcoin, there's a chance the world's oldest and largest cryptocurrency could sink even further, BRN analyst Valentin Fournier said in a note shared with Decrypt.

"For three days in a row, Bitcoin ended in the negative, with unidirectional trading showing limited resistance from the bulls. Ethereum had a slightly positive Monday with strong resistance from bears winning over the last two days," he wrote. "This momentum could bring BTC down to the $62,500 resistance or even $58,000 territories."

Looking ahead, Fournier said BRN's strategy will be "reducing exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum and finding a better entry point after the dip."

All this is despite the fact that the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's comments on interest rates yesterday were broadly seen to be dovish and indicative of the FOMC cutting rates in September.

Singapore-based crypto trading firm QCP Capital pointed out that a rally in equities, which has left S&P 500 starting the day 1.6% higher than its Wednesday close, hasn't been felt in crypto markets.

"Crypto experienced a broad sell-off overnight and into this morning," the firm wrote in a trading note. "The market remains on edge as traders pay close attention to daily ETH ETF outflows and further supply pressures from Mt Gox and US government."

Meanwhile, the rest of the top coins are a mixed bag.

Solana (SOL) has sunk 7.2% since yesterday to $169.13. Thins are even worse for its most popular meme coins. In the past 24 hours, popular meme coins Dogwifhat (WIF) has dropped 12% and BONK (BONK) has fallen 9%, according to CoinGecko data.

Their dog-themed competitor and Ethereum OG Dogecoin (DOGE), the lone meme coin that's in the Coingecko top 10, has fallen almost 4% since yesterday and is currently trading for $0.1205.

XRP (XRP) has fallen to $0.608—7% lower than it was this time yesterday.

Binance's BNB Coin (BNB) has kept pace with BTC and is currently trading for $571, down 2.4% compared to this time yesterday. Toncoin (TON), the native token of The Open Network, has sunk only 0.4% in the past day.

That leaves stablecoins USDC (USDC) and Tether (USDT), which are both flat as they maintain their 1:1 pegs with the U.S. dollar.

decrypt.co