Bitcoin retook $57,000 Monday morning, after slipping below $55,000 just a few hours earlier. This volatile start to the week has seen almost $160 million worth of BTC liquidations take place.
The industry’s leading cryptocurrency fell to $54,600 in the early hours of Monday morning but climbed 4% to $57,000 in the 10 hours that followed. At time of publication, Bitcoin's price is around $57,175, up 0.6% on the day, per data from CoinGecko.
Over the past 24 hours, approximately $102 million in Bitcoin (BTC) short positions were liquidated, per data from CoinGlass, with an additional $57 million in long positions also liquidating. During this same time frame, Ethereum only saw $63 million of liquidations as it retook $3,000.
Bitcoin's volatile price moves come as significant selling pressure mounts on the market, due to the German government offloading its Bitcoin while 127,000 creditors await crypto funds from the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate.
On Monday morning, the German government moved thousands of BTC to exchanges including Kraken, Coinbase and Bitstamp, per data from Arkham. In addition, it sent funds to a number of unknown wallets and finance firms including Flow Traders and Cumberland DRW.
In recent days, the German government has been moving Bitcoin, seized as the result of criminal cases, onto crypto exchanges, causing the leading crypto’s price to plummet and prompting critics to voice concerns over the government’s strategy.
Despite these recent moves, addresses linked to the German government currently hold over $1.8 billion worth of Bitcoin, according to Arkham Intelligence.
Alongside this, defunct exchange Mt. Gox has started to transfer billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin as it prepares to repay creditors. The firm currently holds $7.9 billion worth of Bitcoin in its wallet, according to Arkham Intelligence data, which many believe could be sold once sent to creditors that have been out of pocket for a decade.
Experts believe that the significant sell pressure mounted by Mt. Gox sales and German offloading will “likely” mark the Bitcoin’s bottom.
In spite of this, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs saw inflows of $143 million on Friday, according to Coinglass, while Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs saw a zero net flow.
This rough week has seen the Crypto Fear and Greed index drop to 28, indicating Fear, after sitting at 72 just a month ago.