Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Dogecoin continued to fall Monday, triggering a wave of liquidations that topped $900 million over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin dropped below $110,000 for the first time since early July, spearheading a market-wide swoon after a whale unloaded 24,000 BTC worth $2.7 billion on Sunday. The continued dive also comes amid fresh doubts about the prospects of an interest rate cut and other macroeconomic uncertainties.
The largest cryptocurrency by market value was recently trading at $110,441, down 2.2% over the past 24 hours. BTC is down more than 5% over the past week.
“The weekend whale sale may have sparked the initial downdraft, but the broader picture is one of thinning liquidity and skittishness around macro,” Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto fund manager BitBull Capital, wrote to Decrypt.
“With rate-cut hopes being pushed further out and equities wobbling, crypto was vulnerable to a sharper move lower once heavy supply hit the market,” he added. “What we’re seeing is less about one seller and more about a market that remains highly sensitive to outsized flows against a backdrop of macro uncertainty.”
Ethereum, the second largest digital asset, plunged 8% to trade at $4,375, just a day after reaching its latest record high. ETH topped $4,900 for the first time in its history on Sunday, two days after breaking its long-standing price record from 2021.
Crypto prices are in the red up and down the charts, with Dogecoin diving by more than 10% to $0.208, Solana falling 8.5% to $186 after reaching a six-month high on Sunday, and XRP dropping nearly 6% to $2.85.
More than $900 million worth of futures positions have been liquidated across the crypto market over the last day, per data from CoinGlass, led by Ethereum at $320 million and Bitcoin at about $210 million. Long positions, or bets that an asset’s price will increase, dominate the carnage at about $817 million out of the $903 million in total liquidations.
So far on Monday, there has been about $895 million worth of crypto liquidations. Myriad users don’t believe that there will be a single day with $1 billion worth of liquidations by the end of the month, giving it a roughly 36% chance as of this writing—but that mark has grown over the course of the day as prices have dropped.
(Disclaimer: Myriad Markets is a product of Decrypt‘s parent company, DASTAN.)
The declines come as markets fretfully await the latest U.S. economic data reports and other measures that may influence the Federal Reserve’s next rate decision. On Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell buoyed crypto and other risk-on assets when he hinted at a cut, which would be the first since last December. A decline in interest rates typically helps markets by freeing capital for investment.
On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis releases the July Personal Consumption Expenditures report, the Fed’s favored price gauge. Analysts expect the PCE to rise to 2.9% annually, ticking up slightly from June. On Tuesday, The Conference Board’s monthly index is expected to show a decline in consumer confidence.
