Crypto Traders See $343M of Liquidations as Bitcoin Dips Below $40K

The latest price declines in cryptocurrencies are inflicting widespread pain on traders who had made leveraged bets in the notoriously volatile markets, resulting in more than $340 million of liquidations just in the past 24 hours.

More than 109,000 traders were hit with liquidations over the past 24 hours as bitcoin dipped below $40,000 on Monday for the first time since September.

According to data from Coinglass, the crypto market saw a total of $343 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours with roughly $94 million happening in the last four hours; nearly $122 million of that was linked to bitcoin trading positions. The highest number of liquidations happened on OKEx, the Seychelles-based exchange, followed by Binance.

The largest single liquidation was on Bitmex, for $5.95 million.

Trading positions linked to ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, saw $89 million in liquidations.

Liquidations in the crypto market happen when a trader has insufficient funds to fund a margin call – or a call for extra collateral demanded by the exchange to keep the trading position funded. They’re especially common in high-risk trading due to the high volatility of assets. It occurs in both margins and futures trading.

On Monday, bitcoin fell to a three-month low, hitting $39,692.03 after the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization saw a steady decline, possibly caused by speculation that the Federal Reserve could move quickly to tighten monetary conditions in the face of fast-rising inflation.