Bitcoin Falls Below $93,000 as Market Cools Off

The cryptocurrency market experienced a broad correction on Tuesday, with Bitcoin now down nearly 8% from its near-$100,000 all-time high.

Bitcoin dropped 3% over the past 24 hours to trade at $92,500. Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) followed suit, slipping 5% and 6%, respectively. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell by 4.7% to $3.3 trillion.

Over $623 million in leveraged positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours, affecting over 206,000 traders, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin and Ethereum accounted for $150 million in combined liquidations.

"There's definitely profit-taking at these levels. The average holding price is around $30K, representing a two to three-times upside for investors. So, there's significant sell pressure, but we also see equal buyback pressure,” said Haider Rafique, Global Chief Marketing Officer at OKX.

He added that while 10-20% pullbacks are possible, they’re unlikely to last long.

“Looking at Bitcoin's history, when it dropped to the $50K level, there was so much buying demand that it quickly rose back up to $60K,” Rafique said.

Some analysts view the pullback as part of a broader market pause.

“This isn’t an excessive pullback. Bitcoin is merely retracing to levels seen early last week. The market had become extremely overbought since the election with excessive leverage, making a pause inevitable,” wrote analysts at digital asset trading firm QCP Capital.

Memecoins Decline After CZ’s Remarks

Memecoins also faced losses, with Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and Pepe (PEPE) falling between 2-5%. The memecoin sector declined 7% in the past 24 hours, settling at $119 billion.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao criticized the memecoin market, urging the crypto community to focus on building meaningful blockchain applications.

“I am not against memes, but meme coins are getting "a little" weird now. Let's build real applications using blockchain,” Zhao said.

Meanwhile, the stablecoin market continues to grow, hitting an all-time high of $189 billion. Tether (USDT) maintains its dominance with a 70% market share. Year-to-date, the stablecoin market cap has increased 45% from $130 billion on Jan. 1, according to DeFiLlama.