Selling pressure on bitcoin (BTC) contributed to a broader market decline, as tokens from some of the largest blockchains fell as much as 6% in Asian morning hours on Thursday.
Bitcoin dipped below $22,000 during European hours on Wednesday, even as broader traditional markets remained relatively unchanged. Ether (ETH) lost more than 2%. Large-caps, among others, solana (SOL) and matic (MATIC) fell 6% over the past 24 hours, while Uniswap’s UNI and Avalanche’s AVAX fell 4% over the same period.
Artificial intelligence-focused tokens The Graph (GRT) and SingularityAI (AGIX) fell as much as 8%, offsetting gains from a month-long surge. Curve ecosystem tokens curve (CRV) and convex (CVX) fell 7%, while gaming-focused ImmutableX (IMX) fell more than 12%.
The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI), a broad index designed to measure the market capitalization-weighted performance of the crypto market, fell 1.2%.
Toncoin (TON) bucked the trend, rising 6% in the past 24 hours with no immediate catalysts. Shiba Inu (SHIB) rose 2.2%, supported by the upcoming beta launch of Shibarium, its native blockchain.
As such, the market-wide drop came as crypto-friendly Silvergate Bank said it will “voluntarily” liquidate its assets and resume operations of its holding company, Silvergate Capital Corp. (SI), will phase out.
Elsewhere, CoinDesk reported that US banking giant JPMorgan (JPM) is ending its banking relationship with Gemini.
Meanwhile, the price drop triggered more than $100 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours, according to data from analytics tool Coinglass. Just over 85% of these liquidations were on short positions, or from traders betting on falling prices.
More than $70 million in those numbers occurred on bitcoin and ether futures alone.
Liquidations occur when traders borrow money from exchanges to bet on crypto prices with a relatively smaller starting capital, capital that is forfeited when prices reach a predetermined liquidation level.
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