Bitcoin Price Plunges as $245 Million in Crypto Longs Are Liquidated

Bitcoin's price is sinking, dropping by 5% over the last 24 hours and prompting a growing wave of liquidations across the crypto ecosystem, totaling $265 million over the past 24 hours.

As of this writing, Bitcoin is sitting at a price of $66,548, down from a 24-hour peak above $70,000. Crypto long positions have been most severely affected by the price action, with some $245 million in longs liquidated over the past day, per data from CoinGlass, including about $57 million in Bitcoin long positions.

BTC’s slide today is the most rapid downwards slump the world’s top cryptocurrency has seen in over a month. Just days ago, the token came within striking distance of its previous all-time high, $73,737, set back in March.

That movement comes in advance of two key, potentially market-moving events scheduled for tomorrow.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish its consumer price index for May, revealing the latest update on the U.S. government’s battle against inflation. Later tomorrow, Jerome Powell, Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, will hold a press conference announcing updates to American fiscal policy after a two-day Fed meeting. 

Should those events bring dismal news concerning inflation and interest rates, BTC may be at risk of falling further. 

While BTC-related positions have resulted in $61.27 million worth of liquidations in the last 24 hours, that price action was outpaced by Ethereum, the day’s leader in liquidations. 

In the last day alone, over $7o million worth of ETH-related positions have been liquidated. The overwhelming majority of those—nearly $66 million’s worth—were long positions. ETH is down 6.8% today, to $3,437 at writing. 

Solana has seen some $9.7 million in long positions liquidated since yesterday; in that period, the token has sunk 8.5%.

PEPE, DOGE, and NOT—the coin behind the hit Telegram-based game Notcoin—have each seen about $4 million in long position liquidations in the last 24 hours.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.