Bitcoin accelerated the decline that started in the morning and in the process reached $47 750. This is the lowest price at which the cryptocurrency was quoted in the last seven days. The fall from the high above $58 000 was more than $10 000, or 18%. At the time of publication, the market remains volatile. From the local minimum in 5 minutes, the price rose more than 7% above $51 000.
Against this background, the volume of liquidations of margin positions in one hour exceeded $2 billion, of which over $1 billion fell on the bitcoin market. Many altcoins lose more than 20% of their value, which also leads to liquidations of hundreds of millions of dollars. If the observed dynamics continue, days with the liquidation of positions worth several billion dollars will become the norm for the cryptocurrency space.
The decline is taking place against the backdrop of an increase in the flow of bitcoins to exchanges. Over the past day, the balances of trading platforms have grown by 37 000 BTC, which was the largest value in the current year and is comparable to the levels of March 2020, when the market experienced a major collapse.
At the same time, it became known about another series of negative comments by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen regarding bitcoin, who called the cryptocurrency “extremely inefficient” due to the large amounts of energy used by its network.
“People need to be aware of the extreme volatility [of bitcoin]. I am really worried about potential losses for investors. I am afraid it is used in illegal financial flows,” she said.
Michael van de Poppe proposes to monitor the support of $42 000-44 000, the preservation of which is necessary to resume the rise with a target at $63 000. Otherwise, the cryptocurrency may roll back to $37 000, he said.
In general, February and March have historically been not the best periods for Bitcoin, the analyst notes. In 2017, 2018 and 2020, this time was marked by major corrections, and in 2016 and 2019 – consolidation.