Bitcoin ‘late longs’ washed out as BTC price falls to $65K

Bitcoin leveraged positions increased over the past week, and a portion of these late longs have been wiped out as BTC price dropped closer to $65,000.

Bitcoin bears extended the sell-side activity after the July 30 Wall Street open as the drop below $66,000 resulted in large decrease in leveraged longs. 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed Bitcoin (BTC) price trading at $65,798, down 2.3% over the last 24 hours.

This followed a series of failed attempts to rise above $70,000, suggesting that this area is important to bears.

Commenting on Bitcoin’s latest price action, popular trader Skew noted that around $800 million worth of BTC futures open interest (OI) have been wiped out following the latest drop from $70,000.

“It looks like the late long de-leveraging move is complete here. Around 12K BTC or $802M in OI has cleared.”

Open interest (OI) refers to the total number of BTC-related derivative contracts currently open on all exchanges.

According to Skew, spot selling is responsible for the sell-off, and the market needs an increase in leveraged long positions and spot buying volume to reclaim the weekly open at $67,500.

Fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades noted that long BTC liquidations are trapped at $69,000, resulting in a “big wipe in open interest.”

Just like Skew, Daan Crypto Trades also believed that spot activity would help determine the direction the market takes.

“Got a solid reset now, and spot will have to determine the direction from here.”

In an earlier X post, Daan Crypto Trades noted “big orders” being placed above the spot price, saying they are “all over the place and are mostly trying to keep price where it is currently.”

Bitcoin futures open interest has been rising rapidly, reaching a new all-time high of $39.46 billion across all exchanges on July 29, according to Coinglass data.

Given this rapid increase in OI, Daan Crypto trades said, “I think we’re due for a lot more volatility.”

As such, market participants have shifted their focus to long traders and spot buying activity.

Related: Bitcoin analysis warns BTC price liquidations will start below $64K

Data from Coinglass shows that long BTC liquidations would begin should the price return to $65,500, roughly a 0.25% drop from current levels.

The chart below shows that short liquidations are building up between $70,000 and $72,000. However, some longs using 10x leverage could be liquidated between $60,372 and $58,400, suggesting a possible price drop to these levels.