There’s bad news in the crypto world today, as coronavirus fears continue to demolish markets.
Notably, chief cryptocurrency Bitcoin crashed 17% in one hour to rest under $6000 as of press time.
That’s a big number, but the sinking in the general crypto world is even worse: Ethereum is down 34% overall, and Litecoin is down 30%. Ripple is down 26%.
Referencing a massive selloff, Omkar Godbole at Coindesk suggests this morning that the drop triggered the highest amoint of Bitmex liquidations since November
“The price drop triggered $698 million worth of sell liquidations and $4 million worth of buy liquidations,” Godbole wrote. “The Seychelles-based exchange had registered total liquidations of $750.8 million on Nov. 14, 2019, when bitcoin’s price dropped sharply from $6,000 to levels below $5,000.”
Godbole characterized a BitMex liquidation this way:
“A sell liquidation on BitMEX occurs when the market moves adversely against a long position (a bullish bet) and breaches the liquidation price – a predetermined limit. When that happens, the liquidation engine closes down the long position automatically.”
By afternoon, BTC had climbed back up over $6,000, but just barely. Investors may be hanging on, but they’re hodling a lot less than they were a couple of days ago. Of course, the same is true of the overall stock market with the DJIA and SP500 both in the red with negative amounts nearing 20% in just two days.
It’s the coronavirus, mostly.
“Growing alarm about the severity of the pathogen — and the economic toll — has sent markets into a tailspin,” a Yahoo team reported today. “Weeks of panic-driven selling has dragged blue-chip stocks into bear market territory at a breathtaking pace, of less than a month from peak to trough. In a televised address, Trump said he was planning to suspend travel from certain areas of Europe to the U.S. for the next 30 days. He also announced plans for $50 billion of low interest loans to affected businesses and suggested a delay in the April 15 tax filing deadline.”
Check in tomorrow morning to see whether the punishing pace of losses continue unabated.
