New year begins with $225M in crypto market liquidations
The cryptocurrency market kicked off the new year slowly as over 99,000 traders were liquidated of approximately $225 million within the past day.
Data from Coinglass shows that traders betting on further price increases bore the brunt of the losses, with around $135.70 million liquidated. On the other hand, traders with bearish sentiments— short traders—lost $87.81 million during the reporting period.
Surprisingly, little-known Tellor Tributes’ TRB token accounted for most of the losses. Traders who held positions on the digital asset contributed more than 32%, or $73.14 million, of the total liquidations.
TRB’s liquidations coincided with a 36.2% decline in value as the digital asset rapidly climbed to over $600 from $200 before sharply falling to around $187 as of press time.
It was unclear why TRB’s price experienced heavy volatility during the reporting period.
Meanwhile, traders betting on the prices of the top two digital assets by market capitalization—Bitcoin and Ethereum—lost $22.96 million, respectively.
During the reporting period, Bitcoin traded largely flat, up by a meager 0.51% to $42,758.
This price performance is coming despite the market optimism surrounding a possible approval for a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S. There are reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might start approving some of these applications from as early as Jan. 2 and 3.
On the other hand, Ethereum’s price fell by 0.36% to $2,306 as of press time.
Speculators on the price of other large-cap cryptocurrencies like Solana, ORDI, and XRP also experienced losses of $7.98 million, $7.58 million, and $1.1 million, respectively.
Crypto traders using the embattled Binance platform accounted for nearly 50% of the total losses suffered in the market. The exchange users lost $94.76 million during the past day, with the most significant single liquidation order being a $3.07 million long position on Ether.
Traders using OKX were liquidated for $76.6 million, while those on ByBit and HTX cumulatively lost nearly $50 million.
