The crypto industry saw more than $180 million in liquidations between December 20 and December 21, while Bitcoin’s rally lifted the rest of the market.
Yesterday, Bitcoin’s price broke past the $44,000 mark for the first time since early December, before returning to its current value of $43,735, according to Crypto Slates facts.
Facts from Coinglass showed that this price movement resulted in huge losses for traders betting on further price increases in the market. Short traders lost $105 million in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, traders who thought the bullish move would continue across the market lost about $76 million during the reporting period.
Bitcoin traders lost $48 million, with 70% of the losses coming from short traders.
On the other hand, speculators on the price of Ethereum were liquidated for a total amount of $38 million. Interestingly, traders who bet on ETH price increases contributed to the most losses, losing around $23 million.
Traders on Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, collectively lost $73 million, while those on OKX were liquidated for $65 million. Traders on other crypto platforms such as ByBit and HTX lost a combined amount of $40 million.
Solana is the market leader
Over the past day, Solana’s price broke past the $80 mark, rose 13% and reached a 19-month high of $86, according to Crypto Slates facts.
Traders who held positions against further SOL price increases lost more than $11 million in the past day.
CryptoSlate reported that SOL’s upward price movement catapulted it to the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, above Ripple’s XRP and other major alternative cryptocurrencies such as Avalanche’s AVAX.
Optimism about ETFs continues
Meanwhile, hopes that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would approve a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) remain high, as the regulator recently held meetings with BlackRock and Grayscale.
In recent months, the Gary Gensler-led Commission has been consistently in touch with ETF applicants, fueling speculation that the market could soon witness the first ETF approval. For context, the regulator has met with these two applicants nine times in the past month, resulting in the amendments to their applications.
Amid these regulatory obligations, several applicants, such as Bitwise, have rolled out several ads for their ETFs, further fueling anticipation and interest in the market.