Bitcoin Slumps, Liquidations Surge

Late Monday, bitcoin (BTC) suffered a short-lived crash to as low as $8,900 on cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX while prices on other exchanges held well above $60,000. The slide began at 22:40 UTC, and within two minutes prices fell to $8,900, the lowest since early 2020, according to data from charting platform TradingView. The recovery was equally quick, with prices rebounding to $67,000 by 22:50 UTC. Throughout the boom-bust episode on BitMEX, BTC’s global average price was around $67,400. Some observers on social media platform X say that selling by a so-called whale – or large holder – catalyzed the crash. According to @syq, someone sold over 850 BTC ($55.49 million) on BitMEX, driving the XBT/USDT spot pair lower.