The price of bitcoin {{{BTC}}} fell to as low as $67,000 during Friday’s Asian trading hours, down 7%, before recovering to around $68,500.
The CoinDesk 20 index, a measure of the largest and most liquid digital assets, fell 6%. Data from CoinGlass shows that over $100 million in long positions have been wiped out over the last 12 hours, while $167 million in longs have been liquidated over the last 24 hours.
Other assets like gold and Wall Street’s tech-heavy index Nasdaq have also come under pressure this week.
Some analysts describe BTC’s pullback from record highs as a typical bull breather seen after sharp uptrends.
“The recent strong [U.S.] CPI data has further cooled the expectation of a Fed rate cut, and gold prices have also tumbled. The recent surge in bitcoin prices has been too fast for the market to price correctly, so the a current correction is expected,” Greta Yuan, Head of Research at VDX, a Hong Kong-licensed exchange said in a note.
Adrian Wang, Founder and CEO of Metalpha, said that market could be adjusting to uncertainties ahead of the next month’s mining reward halving.
“The historical trading volume of Blackrock’s Bitcoin ETF has caused some unease in the market, with some stakeholders fearing that bitcoin’s price will surge too much too soon and could experience a flash crash,” Wang said in an email interview with CoinDesk. “The price correction indicates the market is adjusting its expectations on bitcoin given the uncertainties presented by the halving event as well.”
That said, dips are likely to be fleeting, according to Singapore-based QCP Capital.
“It is very difficult for these short sell-offs to put a lasting dent on the uptrend as long as the daily BTC spot ETF demand remains strong,” Singapore-based QCP Capital said in a note published on Telegram Friday morning, adding that some volatility is expected over the weekend as the market prepares for the release of Federal Open Market Committee minutes next week.
“[QCP]’s desk has seen strong demand for year-end BTC 100-150k calls,” it continued in the note.