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 ,969 to ,659 in 10 minutes to 04:45 UTC, having reached an 11-month high of ,118 at 04:00 UTC, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. The sudden price drop has liquidated nearly

.4 billion worth of positions across major exchanges, as noted by derivatives data provider Bybt.

The price drop triggered 4 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 ,500.

Ether (ETH) also fell a little more than 20% moments after reaching an 11-month high of 5.71. It was trading 1.67 as of press time, which nonetheless represented a 1% gain in 24 hours.

Flash Crash: Bitcoin Price Slides by

.4K in Minutes, CoinDesk, Aug 3