TLDR
- Bitcoin’s price dropped sharply from around $65,000 to $49,000 in early August 2024
- The drop was triggered by news about Mt. Gox, German government selling BTC, and Bank of Japan raising rates
- Bitcoin has since recovered to around $55,000
- There were $270.16 million in Bitcoin liquidations in 24 hours
- Altcoins and memecoins have shown strong performances, with some seeing double-digit percentage increases
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has recovered to around $55,000 after experiencing a sharp drop in early August 2024.
The price fell from about $65,000 on Friday, August 2nd, to $49,000 by Monday, August 5th, marking a decrease of nearly 25% in just a few days.
The steep fall was triggered by a series of events that shook investor confidence. News about Mt. Gox, a defunct cryptocurrency exchange, and the German government selling Bitcoin contributed to the initial decline.
The Federal Reserve’s announcement that it wouldn’t cut rates in September added to the downward pressure. The final blow came from the Bank of Japan’s decision to raise interest rates by 15 basis points to 0.25% last week.
Despite the dramatic drop, Bitcoin has shown resilience, bouncing back to the $55,000 level.
As of the latest data, Bitcoin’s market cap stands at $1.09 trillion, with a 24-hour trading volume of $101.85 billion. This recovery has calmed some fears in the crypto market, although volatility remains high.
The recent price swings have led to significant market liquidations. In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin liquidations totaled $270.16 million, with $161.88 million from long positions and $108.28 million from short positions.
The overall crypto market saw even larger liquidations, with a total of $575.05 million across all cryptocurrencies.
While Bitcoin’s price movements have dominated headlines, other cryptocurrencies have also shown interesting trends. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has seen a notable rise of 6% to $2,497.
Its market cap now stands at $300.55 billion, with a daily trading volume of $51.86 billion.
Altcoins and memecoins have performed particularly well during this period of market turbulence. Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin Cash saw increases of 6% and 7.6% respectively.
Solana and AAVE experienced even larger gains, surging 18.1% and 22%. In the memecoin space, Dogecoin jumped 12.6%, Shiba Inu soared 18.5%, and Dogwifhat saw the largest rise at 20%.
Some market observers have drawn parallels between the current situation and the market crash that occurred in March 2020 during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, there are significant differences. The trading volume during the recent drop was much lower than during the 2020 crash.
