Bitcoin has fallen below 53 thousand dollars
Bitcoin prices fell to as low as $52,500 on August 5, following a sudden drop that sent BTC down 10% from $58,350 in less than two hours.
Bitcoin (BTC) has recovered some ground since the flash crash and is trading at $54,384 at press time, according to TradingView data.
The last time BTC traded below $53,000 was earlier this year. It was on February 26, following the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States that the price increased.
The price of Ether (ETH) also fell, dropping 18% from $2,695 to $2,118 in the same timeframe. ETH has risen slightly and is currently trading at $2,358 according to TradingView data.
The downward spiral has now seen more than $740 million worth of leverage in the crypto market wiped out in the last 24 hours, with CoinGlass data showing over $644 million worth of leverage has been wiped out in the long run.
In particular, traders who wanted to gain excessive exposure to Ether were hit hard, clearing more than $256 million in ETH longs, while $231 million in BTC longs were forcibly closed.
Related: Bitcoin eyes $58K CME gap next as 8% BTC price router longs ‘rekt'
The past few months have seen a sharp increase in open interest for ETH, with traders flocking to gain exposure to the asset before and after the approval of the Spot Ether ETF in the US.
The sharp decline in the value of the crypto asset came with a sharp sell-off in the Japanese stock market, the Nikkei 225, which is currently down 7.1% in the first trading hours.
In the year On Aug. 2, Japanese banks suffered their worst performance since 2008 after the country's central bank decided to raise interest rates.
The sudden flash crash saw the total crypto market capitalization fall by as much as $500 billion over the past three days, the biggest 72-hour loss in more than a year.
Many market analysts attributed the recent turmoil to weak US jobs data, a slowdown in growth among market-leading technology companies in the stock market, and the threat of a wholesale sell-off from crypto trading firms.
Magazine: How Cryptobots Are Ruining Crypto — Including Auto Memecoin Carpet Pulling
