The sell-off in the Bitcoin market, in particular, intensified due to excessively leveraged bullish bets.
Bitcoin (BTC) and spot gold hovered below their key psychological levels on Wednesday as a stronger United States dollar weighed on investors’ appetite for hedging assets.
The BTC/USD exchange rate dropped 5.27% to its intraday low of $44,423 but recovered a portion of those losses after reclaiming the $45,000–46,000 range as support. The pair’s recovery also came as an extension to its ongoing rebound from $42,830, a level it reached on Tuesday after falling by more than 18% in the session.
Bitcoin’s massive sell-off coincided with a strikingly similar but dwarfed decline in the rivaling gold market. In detail, the precious metal suffered its worst daily drop in a month on Tuesday as spot XAU/USD rates fell below $1,800 following a minus 1.37% intraday move.
The large red hourly candle on gold and Bitcoin charts appeared between 10:00 and 11:00 UTC. However, the precious metal consolidated sideways after the big decline in contrast to Bitcoin that extended its downtrend.
In detail, the cryptocurrency crumbled under the weight of excessively leveraged bullish bets. Bybt data showed that about $3.68 billion worth of longs in the Bitcoin options market got liquidated in the last 24 hours, marking it the largest liquidation since June.
Automated liquidations caused additional selloffs in the Bitcoin market, as traders were forced to sell their BTC holdings to cover their margin calls.