Over 100,000 traders lose $403 million as Bitcoin falls below $36,000

It was a sea of red in the cryptocurrency space that has seen 103,518 traders having their accounts liquidated as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies sell-off, a day after the United States Federal Reserve handed down its policy decision to increase interest rate by half a percentage point.

Liquidation refers to when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin. It happens when a trader is unable to meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position (fails to have sufficient funds to keep the trade open). Liquidation occurs in both margin and futures trading.

The total liquidations from these traders amounted to a total of $403.42 million, with longs accounting for $344.52 million or 85.40% of the total liquidations. The shorts accounted for the rest of the total amount ($58.9 million).

What you should know

• Flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin lost almost $4,000 in less than 12 hours, from a little above $39,600, to trade as low as $35,850 in the Asian session today. This represents a decline of approximately 10%.
• The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization also fell. The market cap fell below the $1.7 trillion support to currently stand at $1.64 trillion as of the time of this writing.
• The Fed hiked its interest rate to 1%, the largest increase since 2000, as it handed down its policy decision on Wednesday.
• We are currently seeing the effects of the policy decision made by the federal reserve. The U.S. Fed increase in the interest rate brought about a strong dollar index (a measure of the strength of the U.S. dollar).
• As of the time of this writing, the dollar index is trading at a 20 year high, currently above 104 basis points.
• When Bitcoin sneezes, the altcoins catch a cold and this was exactly what played out yesterday. We saw a massive sell-off in the altcoin market, with many tokens losing 5% and more.
• In fact the selloff saw DOT and AVAX lose their top 10 status, as they have been overtaken by stablecoin’s UST and BUSD.
• Okex exchange accounted for the most liquidation, representing $161.95 million or 40.14% of the total liquidations. Binance came in second, accounting for $104.94 million which represents 26.01%.

Bitcoin liquidations accounted for the most as expected, representing $191.19 million or 47.40% of the total liquidations in the last 24 hours. Ether came in second, accounting for $64.79 million and in third place, APE, accounted for $11.43 million.