Bitcoin Price Slips Below $64,000 as $209 Million in Crypto Longs Liquidated

The price of Bitcoin slipped below $64,000 Thursday morning, with over $209 million in crypto long positions liquidated as the market slumped overnight.

Per data from CoinGecko, Bitcoin is currently trading at around $63,700, down 4% on the day.

As Bitcoin tumbled, the wider crypto market fell in lockstep, with the combined market cap of all cryptocurrencies dropping by 4.7% overnight. Ethereum, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, has faced a similar fate to Bitcoin, down 5.3% over the past 24 hours to hover around $3,090.

Among the top 10 cryptocurrencies, Toncoin (TON) has seen the biggest dip, down 10.1% over the past 24 hours to trade at $5.21.

The market slump saw over $209 million in crypto long positions liquidated, according to CoinGlass data, with over $52 million in Bitcoin longs liquidated. Longs are derivative contracts that enable investors to bet that the price of an asset will go up; if a long is liquidated, then the trader has lost the bet and their position is closed.

The downturn comes as inflows into BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF dried up, ending a 71-day streak after it broke into the top 10 for the longest ETF daily inflow streaks since 2004.

Across the board, according to CoinGlass data, Bitcoin spot ETFs outflows hit $120.6 million after three consecutive days of inflows.

This comes as Hong Kong’s spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs were officially approved yesterday, with a trading date set for April 30. Experts believe this move could bring up to $25 billion into the crypto market, should the ETFs be opened up to investors in mainland China.

Over the weekend the Bitcoin halving occurred, an event where Bitcoin miners saw their rewards cut in half. While historically, this event has been bullish over the long-term, it’s also often seen losses over the short-term. Since Bitcoin’s high of $65,230 on the day of the halving, the leading cryptocurrency has dropped 2% as it dipped below $64,000.

Alongside the halving, a new Bitcoin token standard called Runes was released. These tokens, which are essentially meme coins for Bitcoin, took over the network, accounting for over 81% of transactions on Tuesday.