Buyers showed up quickly to reverse the crypto market dip through Monday.
- Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $48,600 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), slipping less than 1% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $45,926 to $49,332.
- In a brief market correction Monday morning, over $1.6 billion worth of crypto futures contracts were liquidated over the past 24 hours, per Bybt.
- The total cryptocurrency market cap broke $1.5 trillion for the first time late Monday, according to CoinGecko.
Bitcoin has fully pared losses from Sunday’s dip as the leading cryptocurrency fell from around $48,600 to below $46,000 early Monday morning. As of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), bitcoin (BTC, +3.69%) was trading above $48,600 on Coinbase. But the leading cryptocurrency still has yet to trade above the psychologically significant $50,000 mark.
Much of bitcoin’s choppy price action and its recent dip could be attributed to futures deleveraging. Eager bulls piled into long trades expecting a swift breakout to $50,000 or higher. Funding rates for perpetual bitcoin futures have steadily increased through February, according to market data collected by Skew, with some funding rates reaching their highest levels in the past 12 months.
Confirming this market condition, bitcoin futures saw over $520 million in liquidated contracts over the past 24 hours, according to data from Bybit. The eager buyback after these liquidations hints at the market’s resilient bullishness after resetting over-eager bullish futures traders.
High positive funding rates signal an increase in long positions, whereas negative rates indicate a more bearish sentiment. The market tends to reset when traders, especially in overcrowded derivatives positions, become overly bearish or bullish.
Even though some traders may be dissatisfied by the choppy price action, other market participants are enjoying themselves. Bitcoin miners, for example, hauled in a record $354 million in revenue last week, passing the previous record of $340 million set in mid December 2017. Network fees contributed over 15% of this revenue.
Ethereum
Ether (ETH, +5.38%), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday trading around $1,820 and climbing less than 1% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Source: Coindesk
