A drop in crypto markets from Monday evening prompted almost $300 million in liquidations across several crypto futures contracts, data from analytics tool Coinglass showed.
Bitcoin prices rose above $52,000 on Monday before tumbling by as much as $3,000 early Tuesday, causing over $94 million in liquidations.
Liquidations occur when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position as a safety mechanism due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin.
Nearly 80% of the $300 million in liquidations occurred on long positions, which are futures contracts in which traders bet on a price rise.
The relatively smaller liquidation figures for altcoins compared with bitcoin imply recent price surges for SOL and LUNA were driven mainly by spot trading.
Data from Coinglass shows $19 billion worth of futures positions on bitcoin remain open in the last week of 2021 and $11 billion worth on ether futures.
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