Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rebounds to $11,400 After Flash Crash as Ether Closes In on $400

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3 August 2020

Cryptocurrencies are working their way back Monday after Sunday’s big flash crash.

  • Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $11,417 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), gaining 2.1% over the previous 24 hours.
  • Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,913-$11,485
  • BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
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Bitcoin trading on Coinbase since August 1.
Source: TradingView

A bullish run for bitcoin past $12,131 was interrupted Sunday, as bitcoin endured a sudden drop, losing over $1,400 within a brief period of time.

Read More: Flash Crash: Bitcoin Price Slides by $1.4K in Minutes

“The market had rallied strongly from $9,000 to over $12,000,” said Rupert Douglas, head of institutional sales for crypto brokerage Koine. “The reaction down was purely to shake out the weak longs who had got in at the higher levels,” Douglas added. 

Indeed, hourly liquidations spiked to over $147 million on derivatives platform BitMEX on Sunday. As the price began trending downward, derivatives traders going long saw their positions automatically sold, the crypto equivalent of a margin call, on the Seychelles-based exchange. 

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BitMEX bitcoin liquidations the past week.
Source: Skew

The highest BitMEX liquidation during the session was a $10 million long position. “There were a lot of high-levered long day traders who were liquidated and are licking their wounds as a result,” said John Willock, CEO of digital asset liquidity provider Tritum. 

The amount of spot bitcoin trading on Coinbase Sunday was higher than normal, at $318 million. In fact, Sunday was the second-highest volume day in the past month, following a $446 million day on July 27. 

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Coinbase spot bitcoin volumes the past month.
Source: Skew

“The rest of the market seems to have had a big appetite to accumulate bitcoin at $1,000 off, now working its way back to $12,000 and beyond,” Willock added. “I see it as a stumble and we’re back on track.” 

Read More: Bitcoin Investors Unshaken by Sunday’s Flash Crash, Data Suggests

Bitcoin is still 5.8% off of its Sunday high, while ether is down 5%. 

Ether closing in on $400

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Monday trading around $394 and climbing 4.4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). 

Ether was not spared Sunday’s flash crash, falling as low as $325 before recovering. Some traders claim they took advantage of the dip. “We had expected ETH to fall back to the low $300s and accumulated there,” said Jack Tan, managing partner of Taiwan-based quantitative trading firm Kronos Research. 

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Ether trading on Coinbase since Aug. 1.
Source: TradingView

Karl Samsen, vice president of capital markets for trading firm Global Digital Assets, told CoinDesk ether is separating itself from bitcoin and is actually helping push the alternative cryptocurrency, or altcoin, market. “Bitcoin is rebalancing itself, as it was the previous leader,” Samsen said. “Ether is tearing up the market, and it’s bringing alts up with it. We’re still very bullish on mid- to low-market-cap alts.”

Read More: Nearly $100M in Bitcoin Moved to Ethereum in July, Led by Retail Traders

Other markets

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are all in the green Monday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): 

Read More: July Was a Runaway Month for Crypto Returns

Equities:

Read More: Twitter Hacker Owns $3.4M in Bitcoin, Court Sets Bail at $725K

Commodities: 

  • Gold is flat, in the green 0.07% and at $1,976 as of press time.
  • Oil is up 0.90%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.81

Read More: Electric Capital’s New $110M VC Fund Is 90% Institutions

Treasurys:

  • U.S. Treasury bonds are mixed Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the two-year, in the red 5%.

Read More: Inside a Crypto ‘Ponzi’: How the $6.5M Banana.Fund Fraud Unravelled

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