Sudden Crypto Volatility Leads to $216 Million in Losses, Liquidating Both Long and Short Positions

Rapid swings in cryptocurrency prices on Friday wiped out traders from both long and short positions, resulting in a total liquidation loss of $216 million over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data.

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked above $31,200 early Friday before quickly plunging as low as $29,470, data from AskFX Indices shows as traders reacted to news that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (Securities and Exchange Commission) Deems Recent Filings for Spot Bitcoin Exchange Invalid -Funds Traded Insufficient.

After this initial shock, BTC stabilized at around $30,000 and at press time has started to recoup some losses and is back close to $30.5000. Other cryptocurrencies largely followed BTC’s price movement in both directions.

Volatility has wiped out more than 68,000 traders and liquidated $116 million in long positions (betting on higher prices) and $100 million in short positions (betting on lower prices), according to CoinGlass. Liquidations occur when an exchange closes leveraged positions due to a partial or total loss of initial margin due to the trader not having enough funds to keep the position open.

BTC traders suffered $65 million in losses mostly liquidating long positions, followed by Ether (ETH) traders with $36 million on mostly short liquidations.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was responsible for $22 million in liquidations. The token nearly tripled in price in June and saw a resurgence in trading activity after being one of the four assets listed on EDX Markets, a new crypto exchange backed by traditional financial heavyweights Citadel, Fidelity and Schwab.

The largest single liquidation order was on the Bybit exchange, a $4.57 million BTC-USD position.