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On Feb. 24, 2023, bitcoin’s price remained above the $23,000 threshold and then rose to a peak of $23,829 per unit on March 1. On March 2 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, the price of bitcoin fell, dropping below the $23,000 mark. This decline resulted in a significant $237.97 million worth of long liquidations on a variety of crypto derivative exchanges. Of that total, $206 million in liquidations occurred on March 2 alone.
Bitcoin Derivatives Record $237 Million Liquidated in 24 Hours
In the past 24 hours, 65 cryptocurrency derivative exchanges recorded a trading volume of $171 billion, which represents a 21.85% change from the previous day. Throughout February, the trading volume and open interest for bitcoin futures increased, reaching a total of $791 billion, with Binance accounting for $468 billion of that amount.
On Feb. 21, 2023, the total open interest in bitcoin futures peaked at $9.73 billion, but it has since decreased to $9.06 billion as of March 2. BTC’s price had stayed above the $23,000 threshold for approximately seven days leading up to March 2.
However, on Thursday, the price plummeted to a low of $22,259 per coin. Prior to the drop, there were many long positions, and according to statistics from Coinglass, 78,116 traders were liquidated when the price fell at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The total liquidations since the price change amount to $237.97 million, with the largest liquidation occurring on Okx.
On March 2 alone, $206 million worth of liquidations occurred, with 90% of the positions being long. According to Coinglass, a BTC/USD swap on Okx had a value of approximately $4.16 million. Binance, Bybit, and Okx experienced the most liquidations in the past 24 hours, followed by Huobi, Coinex, and Deribit.
On March 2, there were $9.2 million in short positions betting against BTC’s value rising. The liquidations on March 2 were nearly as high as the number of long liquidations that occurred on Feb. 8 when $254 million in long positions were wiped out. The March 2 liquidations more closely matched those on Jan. 17, which saw $190 million in long positions liquidated.