Bitcoin Price Slides by $1.4K in Minutes

Bitcoin suffered a price drop of $1,458 in under an hour on Sunday. The sudden slide caught many traders off guard, forcing out a significant amount of buying pressure from the market.

The biggest cryptocurrency by market value fell from $11,969 to $10,659 in 10 minutes to 04:45 UTC, having reached an 11-month high of $12,118 at 04:00 UTC, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. The sudden price drop has liquidated nearly $1.4 billion worth of positions across major exchanges, as noted by derivatives data provider Bybt.

The price drop triggered $144 million worth of sell liquidations or forced closure of long positions on BitMEX, the highest since May 10, according to data source Skew. Nearly 95% of BitMEX liquidations were long positions – a sign the leverage was skewed to the bullish side – which isn’t surprising given the cryptocurrency recently charted a bullish breakout with a move above $10,500.

Ether (ETH) also fell a little more than 20% moments after reaching an 11-month high of $415.71. It was trading $361.67 as of press time, which nonetheless represented a 1% gain in 24 hours.

Flash Crash: Bitcoin Price Slides by $1.4K in Minutes, CoinDesk, Aug 3