Bitcoin Drops 1% After $160 Million Long Liquidations

Bitcoin, the premier cryptocurrency, has recently experienced a slowdown in its bullish momentum after a strong rally towards its all-time high. Over the past few days, the price of Bitcoin has been notably lethargic, and on Friday, June 20, it took a severe hit, briefly falling below the $103,000 mark. This decline was part of a broader market downturn that affected the entire crypto market.

Despite this setback, recent market data suggests that Bitcoin's price may stabilize following a round of long liquidations. On-chain analyst Amr Taha, in a post on the CryptoQuant platform, explained the dynamics between Bitcoin's price and the recent liquidation event. Taha noted that the critical $103,000 liquidation cluster, which held a large volume of overleveraged long positions on Binance, has been cleared off. This liquidation event occurred as the price of Bitcoin plunged toward the $102,500 level on Friday evening.

According to data from CryptoQuant, the price decline caused long liquidations on Binance to exceed $160 million. This event coincided with a significant change in the Bitcoin Net Taker Volume on the exchange, which moved deep into the negative territory, falling to nearly -$100 million in the past day. This marks the third time the Net Taker Volume has fallen to this level in June.

Taha highlighted that the change in this metric suggests that aggressive selling outweighed buying activity during the liquidation event. Two possible reasons for this trend include the forced closure of long positions, pushing sell orders into the market as the Bitcoin price fell below $103,000, and retail traders panicking and filling new sell orders in fear of further losses. Despite the immediate impact, Taha concluded that the combination of long liquidations and extremely negative Net Taker Volume might not be entirely detrimental to Bitcoin.

Taha explained that while such events often feel devastating in the moment, they lay the groundwork for healthier price action. Given these dynamics, the path of least resistance may now shift upward as Bitcoin stabilizes above key support levels with reduced leverage overhead. As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $103,450, reflecting an over 1% decline in the past 24 hours.