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Ahmed Barakat
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Crypto is having another episode this morning. Why is crypto down again, even though it seems to be stabilizing and grinding higher for weeks? BTC USD broke below $63,000 while ETH USD butchered in a more brutal bloodbath.
If we look closer at the onchain data, the main culprit was the same old-fashioned leverage flush. Long positions that had been sitting comfortable has been taken out in waves, with liquidations running at $580 million just on long positions in 24 hours. The dominoes started falling, and as usual, over-leveraged traders were wiped clean.
The other cause is likely coming from Japan. The Nikkei had just printed a fresh all-time high yesterday, only to turn around and give back ground today. Every time this happens, risk appetite across Asia tends to evaporate. Retail traders in Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia started selling into exchanges, and Binance once again took the biggest inflows during the session, most of which quickly turned into sell orders.
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Part of the pressure is still coming from spot Bitcoin ETF outflows. The heavy bleeding might have slowed down slightly, but money has kept leaving the products and removed a layer of consistent buying that was propping things up before. Without that bid, the price becomes a lot easier to push around.
Then came the usual geopolitical shenanigans. This time, U.S. Vice President Vance claimed progress on getting nuclear inspectors back into Iran. Iranian officials quickly shut it down. Although this didn’t crash the market on its own, it gave market makers a trigger button to play the news.
BTC USD broke first as expected, dropping under $63k, killing all the supports it has. The combination of steady ETF outflows and leveraged longs getting flushed made it hard for the price to find any real footing.
It’s interesting because the timing was too convenient as Asian markets turned risk-off and started dumping. BTC USD, of course, feels it first because so much of the aggressive volume still runs through platforms that serve that region. ETH USD didn’t put up much of a fight, either. It has now looked even weaker.
ETH had shown relative strength against USD in recent weeks, but unfortunately, it dragged lower today with little resistance. Following BTC, ETH USD broke faster, but it looks like it printed a triple bottom, which is not bad from a chart perspective. It could be a make-or-break point for Ethereum, though right now it looks like it’s breaking as this is being written.
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Why? What now?
Binance, once again, saw the heaviest activity, with inflows during the Asian session, which turned into selling pressure. This pattern has become pretty consistent on days like this. The Nikkei, reversing after hitting all-time highs yesterday, added to the negative mood, but it’s not all doom.
In late July and early August 2024, the Nikkei 225 fell sharply from its record highs. The trigger was largely the Bank of Japan raising rates, which caused the Japanese yen to strengthen and forced traders to unwind the famous “yen carry trade.” Interestingly, the Nikkei recovered much faster than many expected. The panic faded, the yen stabilized, and both stocks and crypto ran again over the following weeks.
Today, the move has been much smaller and more contained. Most of the damage is still coming from inside crypto, especially with too much leverage and ongoing ETF outflows. Also, the market has survived much uglier resets than this one.
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