$10 Billion in Liquidations as the Crypto Market Cap Evaporated $360B in Hours

The enhanced volatility in the past day caused nearly $10 billion in liquidations in less than a day as bitcoin, and all altcoins fell hard. Naturally, over 90% of the liquidated amount came from long positions. 

• CryptoPotato reported earlier today the adverse price developments in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin fell by more than $9,000 in hours, Ethereum lost $400, and so on. With most digital assets plummeting by double-digits, the cumulative market cap lost $360 billion at one point. 
• As it generally happens, the community speculated for possible reasons. One theory outlined rumors indicating that the US Treasury Department plans to charge numerous financial institutions for laundering money using cryptocurrencies. 

• While the reason is still debated, the severe price drops caused pain for traders. Data from Bybt shows a whopping amount of $9.98 billion liquidated in the past 24 hours alone. Somewhat expectedly, over $9 billion were from long positions – meaning 91%.  
• Most of the liquidations took place on Binance, which is somewhat expected as it’s the leading exchange by volume. Following were Huobi and Bybit.
• More interestingly, the largest single liquidation order happened on Binance and it had a face value of a whopping $68.73 million.