Crypto Markets Bleed Amid Massive Liquidations

Crypto markets bled on Thursday morning as leveraged traders were liquidated en masse.

Bitcoin fell 5% to $57,350, while Ethereum slipped 3.5%. Solana and Polkadot also declined by 5%.

Nearly all of the top 100 digital assets by market capitalization posted losses over the past 24 hours, with the exception of Mantra (MANTRA), which was up by 11%.

The continued downturn stems from renewed worries about the German government selling its hoard of Bitcoin.

Arkham Intelligence reported that German authorities transferred about $75 million in Bitcoin to Bitstamp, Coinbase, and Kraken. This is one of the largest Bitcoin transfers by the German government to date.

Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, has proposed purchasing the German government's Bitcoin holdings, valued at over $2.3 billion, in an off-market deal to minimize the impact on the cryptocurrency market.

Michael Van de Poppe, CEO of MN Trading, believes that Bitcoin will test the May 1 low of $56,000. “Altcoin depression and capitulation are happening,” he tweeted.

According to CoinGlass, over 132,000 traders were liquidated in the past 24 hours, totaling $381 million. Liquidations occur when traders’ positions are closed automatically due to insufficient funds to cover losses. The largest single liquidation order was on Binance in the ETH-USDT pair, valued at $18.5 million.

Meanwhile, U.S. stock markets remained closed for Independence Day.