The price of Bitcoin (BTC) experienced a significant drop during a tumultuous day in which over $661 million worth of crypto was liquidated, affecting nearly 200,000 traders.
On March 15, Bitcoin saw a rapid decline of 7.5% within a few hours, plummeting from $72,000 to $66,500. Although the asset slightly recovered to reach the $68,000 level, it was ultimately rejected and fell further to around $67,500 at the time of writing, according to data from Tradingview. Currently, the price is 8.3% lower than its all-time high of $73,737 reached on March 14.
The majority of liquidations, accounting for 80%, were from long positions, resulting in $525.2 million in liquidated funds over the past 24 hours. Short position liquidations amounted to $136.5 million.
Within the crypto market, the total capitalization decreased by 7.3% in a single day, reaching $2.68 trillion as approximately $175 billion left the space.
Greeks Live, a provider of crypto derivatives tools, stated on X that there had been a recent shift in market dynamics on March 14. The firm added that the current narrative of ETF inflows might be starting to change.
Pav Hundal, the lead analyst at Australian crypto exchange Swyftx, expressed concerns to Cointelegraph, stating that if ETF volumes continue to decline, there could be a correction leading Bitcoin back to the low $60,000 or high $50,000 range. He also noted that Bitcoin ETF inflow volumes were 48% lower than their 14-day average on the previous day.
Aggregate spot Bitcoin ETF inflows on March 14 amounted to only $133 million, the lowest for this month, according to data from Farside Investors.
Crypto trader and analyst “CrediBULL Crypto” shared his thoughts with his 380,000 followers on X, stating, “It looks like this is the drop we’ve been anticipating.” He added that this recent drop has also wiped out most of the open interest (OI) in derivatives markets and predicted that Bitcoin could fall further to around $63,000 to $64,000.
The recent release of economic data in the United States may have contributed to the accelerated decline in Bitcoin’s price. The PPI data exceeded expectations, leading to projections of prolonged high interest rates by the Federal Reserve. Additionally, the hotter-than-expected CPI data earlier in the week worsened America’s economic woes.
Asian stock markets also experienced a decline on Friday following the disappointing U.S. economic data, which dashed hopes of imminent interest rate cuts.
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