Highlights:
- Bitcoin plunges to $3.8K for the first time since April 2019.
- The cryptocurrency’s deep dive came alongside a massive liquidation spree on the BitMEX crypto exchange.
- The price recovered by $2,000 but left the market in further distress, especially amidst the rising Coronavirus risks on global financial markets.
Bitcoin fell to its 10-month low this Friday the 13th as liquidation went rampant on crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of Hong Kong-based crypto derivatives exchange FTX, alleged that BitMEX failed to liquidate an adequate number of bitcoin tokens from leveraged long positions. He noted that the exchange’s order-book was ten times thinner than what was required to balance the liquidation demand.
As a result, the XBT/USD contract rate on BitMEX fell to $3,596, much lower than the cryptocurrency’s spot price across other exchanges. The pair staged a sharp reversal – of more than $2,000 – only after BiTMEX went offline. Mr. Bankman-Fried noted that bitcoin risked falling to zero had not BitMEX shuttered its trading.
“Per our analysis, BitMEX liquidated $993 billion long positions using their own bots & capital,” it tweeted. “[At around] 2:43 UTC, activity across all exchanges stopped and BitMEX database crashed. Today’s BTC manipulation was caused by one entity.”
Bitcoin’s V-Shape Recovery
Bitcoin’s spot rate on Coinbase exchange plunged to $3,858 as of around 0200 UTC on Friday. After BitMEX’s standby, the cryptocurrency rebounded to as high as $5,858, its gains partly following upside moves in global equities. It so far fell in tandem with the US indexes as a rapidly growing Coronavirus pushed the global economy to the brink of recession.
Bulls have pinned hopes for a broader bitcoin recovery as the market heads to neutralize its oversold technical indicator, the Relative Strength Index, or RSI. At below 30, RSI signals a move upward in the coming sessions, given its history of leading price recoveries.
Also, on bitcoin’s weekly chart, the price is maintaining a strong floor near its 200-week moving average wave. The indicator has previously called out bitcoin’s bottoms, which means there is a possibility that bitcoin could floor-out at $5,500, followed by a decent bounce to the upside.
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