Bitcoin rises above $36K as 24-hour crypto liquidations pass $500M

2 years ago

Bitcoin (BTC) edged higher aft Wall Street opened connected Feb. 24 with Russia's Ukraine penetration and its aftermath inactive apical connected markets' agenda. 

BTC/USD 1-hour candle illustration (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

Risk sentiment acceptable to beryllium "dominant driver" successful crypto

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD nearing $36,400 connected Bitstamp 2 hours aft the opening bell, up $2,000 from its recent lows.

Skittish markets faced the euphony from Russia's overnight incursion into Ukraine, a determination that continued and ricocheted crossed planetary trading.

Russia's banal marketplace unsurprisingly faced a antithetic level of trauma, with MOEX losing 50% and astatine 1 constituent halting trading altogether.

Bitcoin, suffering earlier successful the day, nevertheless staged a respectable comeback.

"At the commencement of the week, escalating tensions betwixt Russia and Ukraine had deed crypto markets hard. Our crypto indices were already showing sizeable losses crossed each sectors," Sahil Sakhrani, a marketplace expert astatine crypto probe steadfast Hive, told Cointelegraph.

Sakhrani warned that the announcement of further sanctions against the Russian system whitethorn exacerbate the concern anew and that Bitcoin's correlation to accepted equities markets should not beryllium overlooked.

"Now the quality has worsened with an evident Russian penetration of Ukraine followed by the EU, UK, and US proposing further sanctions against Russia," helium continued.

"Risk aversion is apt to beryllium the ascendant taxable for markets. With the correlation betwixt bitcoin and NASDAQ picking up again, broader hazard sentiment volition apt beryllium the ascendant operator of crypto markets."

A 2nd bony of contention came successful the signifier of the United States Federal Reserve perchance slackening key complaint rises owed to the conflict.

Pershaps the #Fed is relieved that #Russia invaded the #Ukraine arsenic present it has an excuse not to rise involvement rates successful Mar. If it wasn't this it would've been thing else, but arsenic acold arsenic excuses spell this one's hard to top. #Gold spiked 1.5% and #Bitcoin dumped 5.5% connected the news.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) February 24, 2022

For fashionable trader and expert Pentoshi, however, specified a mentation seemed retired of place.

"If you person an impending recession w rates astatine 0 and inject much superior you get thing worse. Stagflation," portion of a caller Twitter update argued.

On the topic, economist Mohamed El-Erian said that specified risks "come astatine a clip erstwhile Fed argumentation flexibility is constricted and liquidity tin beryllium patchy."

Liquidations walk $500 million

The day's events meantime sent derivatives backing rates good into antagonistic territory arsenic traders weighed the likelihood of much downside.

Related: Last Bitcoin enactment levels supra $20K travel into play arsenic BTC terms faces ‘time of uncertainty’

Data from analytics root Coinglass confirmed the action, on with cross-crypto liquidations reaching $530 cardinal successful 24 hours.

Bitcoin futures backing rates chart. Source: Coinglass

"Heavy" selling by shorters was frankincense successful evidence, probe steadfast Numbrs added astir the data.

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