Bitcoin (BTC) Leads Market Sell-Off Amid $210 Million Crypto Liquidations

The crypto market plummeted further on April 24 after renewed conflict in the Middle East escalated geopolitical tensions.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell 5.2% from a high of $67,077 to a low of $63,542 on April 24. The big crypto has dropped 3.6% over the last 24 hours to trade at $62,287 as of 3:00 am EST, while Ether (ETH) sank by almost the same percentage, down 2.85% to exchange hands at $3,158, according to data from Coin360. This performance increased Bitcoin's dominance to 52.34%.

Cryptocurrency 24-hour performance. Source: Coin360

The global crypto market capitalization has fallen by 3.86% over the last 24 hours to $2.37 trillion.

Broadly speaking, most of the top 10 cryptocurrencies are flashing red. The most notable losses over the last 24 hours were witnessed by Solana's SOL, which was down 8.85%, and Toncoin (TON), which declined 7.54%.

Apart from Dogecoin, other top-cap memecoins were also witnessing a bloodbath. Shiba Inu (SHIB) posted over 7.59% losses over the last 24 hours to trade at $0.0000251. Solana-based memecoins Bonk (BONK) and Dogwifhat (WIF) recorded 8.92% and 14% losses over the same timeframe, respectively.

Performance of top cryptocurrencies. Source: CoinMarketCap

The only notable appreciation over the last seven days fell upon EOS (EOS) which had rallied 1.6% to $0.8762.

Middle East tensions dampen investor sentiments

As in previous cases, Bitcoin and the wider crypto market are once again crashing due to political chaos in the Middle East.

This time, the geopolitical tensions involve the Hezbollah group in Lebanon and Israel, causing investors to enter a risk-off mode. For instance, Bitcoin price dipped to $63,000 on Wednesday when reports confirmed that Israeli artillery and fighter jet strikes had hit around 40 targets in southern Lebanon.

Notably, the BTC crashed again as reports that Hong Kong's spot Bitcoin ETFs will start trading on April 30 failed to spark a post-halving rally.

According to one of the issuers, ChinaAMC, its spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs will track the performance of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's cryptocurrency index. Redemptions will be available using both fiat and cryptocurrency funds will be denominated in three currencies: USD, HKD, and RMB. Investment asset management company BOCI-Prudential and cryptocurrency exchange OSL will serve as custodians for the ETFs.

Leveraged liquidations drive crypto prices lower

The drop in the prices of major cryptocurrencies has led to a rush of liquidations across the derivatives market. Long derivatives traders appear to have been caught off guard, leading to a quick spat of leveraged liquidations.

In the past 24 hours, over $208.12 million in crypto positions have been liquidated across the crypto market, with $73 million wiped out in the last 12 hours. Long BTC leveraged positions totaling $37.51 million have also been liquidated on the day.