Over $300M Liquidated in an Hour as Bitcoin Dumps Below $55K to 6-Week Low

Bitcoin plummeted by several thousand dollars in just a few hours to a six-week low of under $55,000. Most of the cryptocurrency market experienced an even more severe crash. The hourly liquidations exceeded $300 million.

• It was yesterday when the primary cryptocurrency surpassed $59,000 for the first time in days and aimed at $60,000. As with the previous few attempts, though, it failed to challenge that coveted level.
• Just the opposite, BTC retraced to around $58,000, where it stood for a while. However, as reports started to emerge about a new mutated COVID-19 variant, the price of the asset started to tumble.
• In just an hour, bitcoin lost more than $3,000 of value and dumped below $55,000 for the first time since October 13th.
• The situation with the rest of the digital asset market is quite similar, if not worse. Ethereum is down to $4,100, which is a 5% daily drop.
• Solana, Polkadot, Dogecoin, Avalanche, CRO, Litecoin, and Ripple have lost even more substantial chunks of value – between 9% and 15% in 24 hours.
• Somewhat expectedly, this enhanced volatility has caused pain for leveraged traders. On-chain data shows that the liquidations have skyrocketed to more than $300 million in an hour and over $600 million on a daily scale.
• The largest single liquidated order transpired on Bybit. It was worth $12 million and involved the second-largest crypto – ETH.