Bitcoin Price Plummets to $65K, Triggering $400M in Liquidations and Rocking Crypto Markets

According to Cointelegraph: A sharp sell-off was observed in the Bitcoin market on April 12, as BTC price underwent a sudden 5% drop, plummeting from $68,341 to a low of $65,110 within a span of less than an hour. This swift downturn, primarily during late New York trading hours, led to the liquidation of over $400M across Bitcoin and altcoin leveraged positions. BTC/USD hourly chart. Source: TradingView Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, mirrored Bitcoin's decline, experiencing an 8% drop from $3,553 to $3,226. Data from Coinglass revealed that Bitcoin's flash crash resulted in more than $417 million in leveraged positions being wiped out within that hour, with Bitcoin and Ether longs accounting for substantial portions of this figure - over $77.93 million and $63.35 million, respectively. Crypto liquidations heatmap. Source: Coinglass Binance saw the most significant amount of both short and long liquidations, totaling $171 million, while traders on the crypto exchange OKX suffered losses of $158 million. Coinglass also pointed out that over the past 24 hours, total liquidations reached an astonishing $860 million among 270,993 traders. The market shake-up coincided with a downturn in U.S. stock markets and growing concerns over persistent inflation and geopolitical tensions, further amplified by the Federal Reserve's quantitative tightening efforts. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, warned that these factors could strain the otherwise positive economic outlook.