A significant drop in crypto prices was witnessed as Russia seemed once again to be on the verge of invading Ukraine.
Even though US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken requested to meet with his Russian counterpart, a mortar shell hit multiple buildings in the Donbas region of Ukraine, according to multiple reports.
At the time of writing, the global crypto market is valued at $1.85 trillion, a decrease of 5.71% since yesterday.
Investors’ appetite for high-risk assets, such as cryptocurrencies, plunged. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Bitcoin, was trading at about $40.5K at the time of publication.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market valuation, also fell. The rest of the top 20 altcoins lost substantial value.
77,315 traders liquidated their positions for the day. A single liquidation order worth $8.67 million took place on Bitmex – XBTUSD
The majority of these liquidations are related to long positions, which are futures contracts where traders expect a price rise.
As investor jitters mount over reports that the U.S. ramped up warnings about a possible Russian attack on Ukraine, President Joe Biden said a “false-flag” event may be underway, and a top diplomat said it sounded like Moscow is moving toward an “imminent invasion.”
Officials from Russia said no invasion was planned or underway in Ukraine. But the Kremlin responded that its proposals were unsatisfactory and might mean resorting to unspecified “military-technical measures.”
US and NATO officials have said Russia has massed up to 150,000 troops near the Ukrainian border in preparation for an invasion. They say there is no evidence that Russia has backed down from announcements made earlier this week.
On the four-hour chart, price action indicators are showing an oversold signal, as they did on Feb. 3, which preceded a 20% price jump. It is likely that sellers will remain active this time, as the $46K resistance level could serve as a barrier.
Though it should be noted that before the sell-off, Bitcoin addresses that have at least 1,000 BTC in their balances added more tokens, signalling that the wealthiest crypto investors are backing BTC’s rebound.
Furthermore, the number of Bitcoin exchanges hold fell to its lowest levels in over three years on Feb. 13 according to Glassnode data, continuing a bullish downtrend that has been in place since March 2020.