Crypto market liquidations spiked to their highest point in a week on Wednesday as the price of Bitcoin sunk below $60,000.

In the past 24 hours, more than 74,000 traders were liquidated to the tune of $208 million, CoinGlass data shows.

The majority of those — some $184 million — struck investors holding long positions that had bet on prices going up.

The largest liquidations afflicted Ethereum investors, at $55.5 million, almost entirely in long positions, data shows.

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Ongoing issues surrounding U.S. monetary policy, geopolitical tensions, and the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November are projected to impact the top cryptocurrency's price throughout 2024.

Bitcoin dropped from around $62,200 to as low as $59,425 in intraday trading. The asset has since clawed back losses above $60,200 but is still down 3% over the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Ethereum is down by 3% over the same period, falling from a Wednesday high of $3,425 to as low as $3,254. It's now trading at $3,300.

Solana, the world's fifth-largest crypto by market cap, took the largest hit among the top 10 coins, down roughly 8% to $140. Solana had been riding high on New York-based investment management firm VanEck's filing of its “Solana Trust” exchange-traded fund late last month.

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Top cryptocurrencies have fallen over the past month. Ethereum is down over 12% across 30 days despite simmering interest in the debut of Ethereum spot ETFs.

Some analysts predict the new financial products could begin trading by mid-July, with at least one firm predicting the price of ETH will subsequently take off. Bitcoin is down 12% over the same period.

To be sure, analysts still see further price gains this year, with the current market cooling representing a precursor to another major price surge in the coming months, Decrypt reported Monday.

On Wednesday, analytics firm CryptoQuant released a report examining Bitcoin mining metrics and flagged conditions for a bottoming of prices at current levels.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair.

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