Many futures traders have been liquidated after a severe drop in the price of Bitcoin. Despite this, traders remain bullish according to their futures bets.
The price of Bitcoin nosedived yesterday, falling from $8,080 to $7,980 in an hour. Further losses ensued, as it reached a low of $7,700. It has since bounced back to its current price of $7,800.
Data from https://t.co/T3RTVBbJrD shows $92 million worth of bitcoin contracts were liquidated on BitMEX within a single hour, as bitcoin fell from $8,633 to $8,291 in less than 15 minutes. pic.twitter.com/VDvFdNH6Qr
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) March 8, 2020
Over the last 24 hours, $200 million in long positions—where traders bet the price will go up—was wiped out on one platform alone, BitMEX. A liquidation is when the trade is closed becuase the price has gone too far in the opposite direction.
A further $9 million in longs was liquidated on Bitfinex’s futures trading platform, according to data from DataMish.
→Despite the downturn, the futures market remains bullish. Looking at data from Bitfinex, 80% of traders are going long, while the remaining 20% are going short.
Trading volume remains high on some exchanges. BitMEX saw $5.4 billion in trading volume yesterday, with OKEx just behind at $5.3 billion.
Yet trading on Bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt continues to fall. On Friday, just $15 million was settled, either physically (in Bitcoin) or in cash, according to data from Skew.
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