Bitcoin Drops Below $60,000 Triggering $215 Million In Liquidations

Bitcoin’s price crashed by over 5% below $60,000 on Wednesday amid a market selloff impacting the broader crypto and stock markets.

Bitcoin (BTC) began the day trading for roughly $63,700 per coin. Its price began sinking drastically starting at 1:40 PM UTC, and has plummeted to $59,950 as of 4:45 PM UTC. It trades for $60,475 at press time.
Meanwhile, the price of Ethereum (ETH) has slid back under $3000 to just $2950 at writing time. The S&P500 and Nasdaq 100 have declined 0.68% and 1.27%, respectively.
According to Coinglass, the selloff has triggered $216 million in liquidations across the crypto market in the past 24 hours. That includes over 67,000 affected traders, including one trader who lost $5.4 million on an ETH-USD swap.
Many suspect the market selloff has been triggered by escalating geopolitical tensions between Iran and Israel after the former launched a barrage of drones and missiles against the latter over the weekend.
In a Monday note, a CryptoQuant analyst predicted that Bitcoin could see more downside pressure given that funding rates remain elevated compared to historical averages.