Bitcoin briefly dips under $60K amid reports of worsening Middle East crisis

The price of Bitcoin briefly dropped below its critical $60,000 support level again on Friday, falling 5.44% in just two hours amid escalating geopolitical tension in the Middle East.

On April 19, Bitcoin’s price briefly slumped down to $59,698 before quickly recovering to $61,352. It’s a crucial breakdown to note, given that if its price falls down to $59,000, then approximately $243 million in long positions will be liquidated, per CoinGlass data. 

Over the last four hours, $34.03 million in Bitcoin long positions have been liquidated, data shows. 

This comes amid Iranian state media reporting that explosions had been heard at Isfahan airport in central Iran, according to an April 19 ABC News report.

A similar situation occurred on April 13, when Bitcoin’s price experienced similar volatility after Iran launched an attack on Israel, plummeting 8.4%.

At the time, the price decline wiped out over $130 million in market capitalization within minutes following news of the attack.

Bitcoin holders may also be bracing for heightened volatility as the Bitcoin halving event, which slashes miners’ rewards in half every four years, approaches on April 20.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a major tool tracking the market sentiment in cryptocurrency markets, is down 13 points since last week’s greed index of 79.

Bitcoin’s price has been threading above the $60,000 mark over the past seven days but briefly fell from an opening of $63,814 on April 17, dropping as much as 7.5% to an intra-day low of $59,648, per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro.

Open Interest (OI) in Bitcoin has also experienced a slump over the past seven days, dropping approximately 17.6% to $28.06 billion.

Meanwhile, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ether, also experienced a sharp decline, falling 5% below its critical $3,000 price level, briefly dipping to $2,876, before retesting its support level.

The overall crypto market cap is $2.26 trillion, down 0.53% over the past 24 hours.

Source : Cointelegraph by Ciaran Lyons / Apr 19, 2024