Crypto investors and traders lost approximately $1.08 billion in total liquidations amid uncontrolled falling prices of prominent cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether and Solana.
On Aug. 5, crypto market prices saw a significant decline owing to the weakening global economy, which was catalyzed further by the sudden crash of Japan’s stock market. In the process, nearly 300,000 crypto traders were liquidated from their leveraged positions or collateral trades, according to data from Coinglass.
Amid the ongoing bear market, the prices of the most popular cryptocurrencies depreciated, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) falling by over 10% and 20%, respectively. As a result, crypto traders anticipating a prolonged bull run lost their positions in the bloodbath.
As Bitcoin prices crashed from around $65,000 to the $50,000 mark, traders holding long positions on crypto exchanges lost over $315 million in under 24 hours. On the other hand, shorters lost $62.23 million in the process.
During the same timeline, traders with Ethereum long positions lost a total of $305 million, while traders holding short positions lost more than $50 million.
Long positions across all crypto assets lost over $930 million in 24 hours, while shorters lost $163.45 million. All told, nearly 80% of all traders got rekt in less than 12 hours.
According to Coinglass data, the largest single liquidation order happened on the crypto exchange Huobi, where a trader lost $27 million in the BTC/USD trading pair.
As shown above, most liquidations took place on Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume. Other prominent crypto liquidations were recorded on OKX, Huobi, Bybit and BitMEX, among other exchanges.
Related: Bitcoin dips below $50K: Crypto market crashes 17%
While traders patiently await a comeback of the bull run, hackers found an opportunity for profits amid the bear market.
As Ether lost over 20% of its value — from approximately $2,760 to $2,172 — funds linked to a hack on crypto bridge Nomad in August 2022 were used to buy 16,892 Ether.
Onchain activity showed that hackers bought ETH at low prices and siphoned it through the crypto mixer Tornado Cash to prevent traceability.
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