Bitcoin Price Holds Above $62,000, Volatility Causes Increase in Liquidations

The price of bitcoin briefly rose above $63,000 in early trading Thursday before returning to the mid-$62,000 range. Price volatility has caused an increase in liquidations of leveraged Bitcoin positions.

The largest digital asset by market cap is up nearly 6% in the past 24 hours, trading for $62,653 as of 4:47 a.m. ET.

The price surge over the past day led to substantial liquidation of short positions on centralized exchanges. The volatility led to the liquidation of more than $273 million in Bitcoin positions, with the majority ($169.50 million) being short positions, according to CoinGlass. data.

Major altcoins such as SOL, the native coin of the Solana network, and ether also saw daily gains of 16% and 4% respectively, according to The Block’s price page.

The overall crypto market saw over $388 million in short positions liquidated over the past 24 hours, contributing to a total of $751.33 million in liquidations across various centralized exchanges, according to the data.

Liquidations occur when a trader’s position is forcibly closed due to insufficient funds to cover losses. This situation occurs when market movements are unfavorable to the trader’s position, causing the trader’s initial margin or collateral to be exhausted.

Analyst Projections

Analysts at Bitfinex have updated their price projections for bitcoin, predicting that the largest crypto asset could reach a high of between $100,000 and $120,000 by the fourth quarter of 2024.

“Our analysis projects that a conservative price target of $100,000 to $120,000 will be reached by Q4 2024, and that the peak of the cycle will be reached in 2025 in terms of total crypto market capitalization,” they said. Bitfinex analysts said in an email to The Block.

Analysts described the inauguration of several spot bitcoin ETFs in January as having introduced “passive demand” for bitcoin.

“Demand comes from largely price-agnostic investors. They view bitcoin as a store of value rather than a volatile tradable asset, which was the case several years before the introduction of ETFs,” added the analysts.

The GM 30 Index, representing a selection of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, increased by 5.69% to 133.15 in the last 24 hours.

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