Bitcoin's 'normal drop' leads to $256M longs liquidated — analysts

Traders anticipate further downside, with approximately $1.05 billion in short positions at risk if Bitcoin returns to its price from the previous day.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price decline of over 7% within the last 24 hours has resulted in $256 million in losses for traders with long positions. 

However, analysts believe it’s nothing out of the ordinary, despite escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

“So far, this is a normal drop. In fact, we’ve had several 20-22% drops this cycle,” Benjamin Cowan stated in an April 13 post on X.

“Chaos is good for Bitcoin,” MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor declared in an April 13 post on X.

Meanwhile, pseudonymous crypto trader Rekt Capital believes Bitcoin’s price will resume its “uptrend,” although not before experiencing short-term pain first:

“Bitcoin will retrace deep enough to convince you that the Bull Market is over,” Rekt explained.

On April 13, Bitcoin’s price plummeted right down to $60,919, before finding support at $62,060.

At the time of publication, its current price is $63,858, as per CoinMarketCap data.

The sudden price plunge led to a total of $319.15 million in liquidations from leveraged positions in Bitcoin over the past 24 hours.

According to CoinGlass data, this included $256.58 million from long positions and $62.58 million from short positions.

Traders seem to be bracing for further downside. If Bitcoin’s price were to revert to its price level of $67,000 just 24 hours ago, short positions totaling $1.05 billion would face liquidation.

Although the entire cryptocurrency market experienced widespread pain as $945.9 million was liquidated from 253,554 traders over the last 24 hours.

The fear and greed index — a major tool tracking the market sentiment in crypto markets — currently stands at a greed level of 72, a slight decrease from last week’s extreme greed score of 78.

Related: Why XRP price might jump 70% vs. BTC after the Bitcoin halving

The global crypto market cap has also taken an 8% hit, dropping down to $2.23 trillion.

Meanwhile, Cointelegraph recently reported that the growth in demand from Bitcoin whales has never been stronger.

Demand from “permanent holders” has exceeded the market supply of new Bitcoin for the first time, according to data shared by crypto analytic firm CryptoQuant.

This indicates that the amount of new Bitcoin produced by mining is insufficient to meet cryptocurrency investors’ demand, and the scarcity will only grow further after the halving of the Bitcoin.