Bitcoin (BTC) Briefly Tanks to $80K, Leaving Over $600 Million in Liquidations

Over the weekend, Bitcoin’s (BTC) price stabilized at around $86,000, showing little-to-no volatility. However, the bears retook control in the past several hours, suppressing the asset’s valuation to as low as $80,000.

The latest downtrend negatively affected more than 220,000 over-leveraged traders. According to CoinGlass’ data, the total liquidations in the last 24 hours equal approximately $620 million.

BTC trades comprised around $240 million of the figure, Ethereum (ETH) accounted for $108 million, while Ripple (XRP) made up roughly $30 million of the share. 

The largest single liquidation order happened on Binance. It included the BTC/USDT trading pair and cost the affected person a whopping $32.09 million. 

It is worth mentioning that later on the primary cryptocurrency rebounded from the local bottom and is currently worth approximately $82,500. Despite the slight recovery, BTC remains deep in the red on a weekly and monthly scale.

Numerous industry participants are rather surprised by the negative performance, considering the recent good news related to the sector coming from the White House.

Recall that US President Donald Trump kept his word and signed an executive order that his administration would establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile. The initiative, though, will require the government to keep previously seized cryptocurrencies and not directly invest money to purchase them.

This, combined with the supposed “sell the news” scenario after the order became official, could be among the reasons why BTC has headed south instead of charting new peaks. 

Meanwhile, this week is supposed to bring more volatility. On March 12, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the CPI data for February.

The Federal Reserve closely tracks the report, using inflation data to decide whether to adjust interest rates – raising, lowering, or keeping them steady. Historically, such decisions have led to enhanced price swings for BTC.