Over $250 Million in Liquidations as Bitcoin, Ethereum Slip

Bitcoin’s price dropped by over 4.5% Wednesday morning in the space of a few hours, reaching new weekly lows of $29,158, per data from CoinGecko. At present, Bitcoin is trading at around $29,275, down over 2% on the day.

The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies fell at a similar pace with Bitcoin, dropping by 3.7% over the last 24 hours to $1.27 trillion. Ethereum (ETH) also broke below its $2,000 psychological level, and is currently down 6% in the last 24 hours, trading at $1,975.

While there were no immediate catalysts to explain the price crash, gold also experienced a 1.57% drop around the same period, suggesting that the declines can be correlated.

On April 14, the U.S. Federal Reserve leaned toward another 25 basis point hike in its upcoming May policy rate meeting, strengthening the dollar and putting pressure on gold and Bitcoin.

The news restricted a crypto market uptrend during the weekend, as Bitcoin’s price dropped to lows of $29,380 on Monday. While there was a brief recovery above $30,000 the following day, a simultaneous drop in gold and Bitcoin suggests that the market may still be attempting to price the interest rate hike.

The price drop caused a total of $250 million in liquidations across the entire crypto market over the past 24 hours, with the majority of the orders being long, according to Coinglass data. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and XRP accounted for over 40% of the liquidated amount, with the rest of the liquidations distributed across the entire market.