Bitcoin Falls to $73,761 as More Than $1 Billion in Leveraged Bets Are Wiped Out

Bitcoin fell to about $73,761 late on Sunday, its lowest level since August, before rebounding above $75,000. Ether crashed below $2,100 before bouncing back to about $2,144, according to CoinDesk data.

The move wiped out leveraged bets at scale. More than $1 billion in leveraged cryptocurrency positions were liquidated in 24 hours, according to CoinGlass figures reported by CoinDesk, and most of the liquidations happened in about the last six hours.

Long bets took the losses

Long positions, bets that prices would rise, accounted for $913 million of the liquidations. Ether saw $448 million in liquidations, nearly double bitcoin at $272 million. The single largest liquidation order was in ether and was worth $48 million.

An earlier snapshot told the same story as it built. At 23:36 UTC on Nov 8, 24 hour liquidations stood at $855.69 million, with more than 140,000 traders liquidated and long positions accounting for 90.2 percent of the losses. In that earlier snapshot bitcoin touched $73,708, also its lowest since August. Reuters, in its own earlier snapshot, reported bitcoin down by more than 2 percent to $73,708 and ether down about 5 percent to $2,223. The later CoinDesk figures show ether falling further, below $2,100, before its bounce.

Why traders sold

CoinDesk said the sell-off came amid reports of an investigation involving Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and stalled talks between the United States and Iran, with traders awaiting the response of traditional markets on Monday. Both of those stories were reported separately on Sunday.

Reuters pointed to two other pressures. Investors were fretting that a Democratic Party controlled United States Congress will toughen regulation after the midterms, and markets were shaken by a $6 billion heist at Binance.

The pressure showed in related trading too. NVDAX, the tokenized version of Nvidia stock traded on xStock, dropped 3.55 percent to $180.42 over 24 hours, against a Friday Nasdaq close of $186.64 for the underlying stock. The Nasdaq fell nearly 5 percent last week, extending a four week losing streak.

Levels traders are watching

On the price chart, CoinDesk placed bitcoin between the 200 day average support at about $73,150 and the 100 day average resistance at $77,430. It said the bounce to $75,000 had already stalled as of publication.

That leaves bitcoin close to support after a sharp drop and a quick partial recovery. What happens when traditional markets open on Monday is the next test named in the reporting.