Bitcoin and Ethereum were at the forefront of cryptocurrency liquidations, with over 54,000 traders experiencing wiped out leveraged positions as the total market cap approached $2.1 trillion.
CoinGlass reported that over $145 million was liquidated from the crypto market within 24 hours across exchanges, with $91 million of these trades being registered as short positions as traders expected lower prices.
Despite this, the total cryptocurrency market cap increased by 1.2% according to CoinGecko, resulting in the liquidation of downside bets. The largest liquidation order, amounting to $4 million, was a Bitcoin (BTC) position in a USDT pairing on Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Traders collectively lost at least $70 million between BTC and Ethereum (ETH) across long and short positions.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Movements
Bitcoin and Ethereum, the top cryptocurrencies by market cap, have experienced price uptrends in the past week. BTC and ETH have seen gains of 3% and 11% respectively over the last seven days amidst a bullish market sentiment.
The recent approvals of Bitcoin ETFs by the U.S. SEC on Jan. 10 have been a significant driving force behind Bitcoin’s rally, with its price reaching $51,800 and holding a market cap of over $1 trillion, making it the 10th largest asset globally. Anticipation surrounding the upcoming Bitcoin halving in April is also contributing to the positive market sentiment.
Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade
Ethereum’s current momentum is centered around an upcoming technological upgrade known as Dencun. Developers have stated that these modifications will enhance data availability for layer-2 rollups through a blob feature, enabling L2s to include more data in each block, thereby reducing transaction costs and improving scalability.
The Dencun upgrade is expected to be implemented on Ethereum’s mainnet around mid-March following successful testing on testnets such as Goerli, Sepolia, and Holesky.
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