Flash Crash: Bitcoin Price Slides by $1.4K in Minutes

Bitcoin suffered a price drop of $1,458 in under an hour on Sunday. The sudden slide caught many traders off guard, forcing out a significant amount of buying pressure from the market.

• The biggest cryptocurrency by market value fell from $11,969 to $10,659 in 10 minutes at 04:45 UTC, having reached an 11-month high of $12,118 at 04:00 UTC, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
• The sudden price drop has liquidated nearly $1.4 billion worth of positions across major exchanges, as noted by derivatives data provider Bybt.
• The price drop triggered $144 million worth of sell liquidations or forced closure of long positions on BitMEX, the highest since May 10, according to data source Skew.
• The Seychelles-based exchange also registered buy liquidations or forced closure of short positions worth $7.6 million.
• Within the previous 24 hours, at least 72,422 positions were liquidated, with the largest, that of $10 million, occurring on BitMEX.
• Nearly 95% of BitMEX liquidations were long positions – a sign the leverage was skewed to the bullish side – which isn't surprising given the cryptocurrency recently charted a bullish breakout with a move above $10,500.
• At press time, the cryptocurrency was trading near $11,031, representing a 5.5% drop on a 24-hour basis. Prices are still up nearly 57% on a year-to-date basis.
• Ether (ETH) also fell a little more than 20% moments after reaching an 11-month high of $415.71. It was trading $361.67 as of press time, which nonetheless represented a 1% gain in 24 hours.