How quickly things can change in the crypto space: On Monday, Bitcoin was closing in on its all-time high again after having touched—briefly—$70,000 per coin.
But now the asset is trading well below its 2021 record of $69,044—and futures traders are getting ruined.
Over the past 24 hours, as Bitcoin has dropped nearly 6% to $62,753, over $316 million in long positions have been liquidated, CoinGlass data shows.
That figure refers to all coins and tokens in the space that traders had bet on going up in value at a future date.
In the past four hours alone, $123.5 million in long positions have been liquidated. Of that figure, $30.2 million were positions in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin touched a new all-time high of $73,737 per coin in March, according to CoinGecko. It has since struggled to return to that level.
The latest dip could be attributed to U.S. politics.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ election odds have hit a new all-time high with crypto betters, and this is a bearish signal for crypto traders, David Lawant, head of research at FalconX, told Decrypt.
"Prediction markets suggest a slightly lower chance of Trump winning the election, which the market at the moment would see as a positive outcome for crypto,” Lawant said. “With these factors and no immediate positive catalysts, crypto is in the red today."
Republican nominee Donald Trump has been the most vocal about allowing the crypto space to flourish in the U.S.
Lawant added that rising tensions in the Middle East were not helping crypto markets.
Elsewhere, the price of Ethereum has dropped by 7% in the past day to $3,083. Just last week, several spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) started trading—but they are yet to push the price of the second biggest digital coin up.
CoinGlass shows that over $78 million in long Ethereum positions have been liquidated.
Almost every other digital coin and token has dropped in price today, with meme coins hit the hardest.