Bitcoin continued its run today and is now aiming for the $21,000 mark. According to Coindesk, at the time of publication of the note, the exchange rate was above $21,000.
Bitcoin’s jump above $21,000 triggered more than $500 million in cryptocurrency liquidations, the highest in 3 months.
The capitalization of cryptocurrency markets due to a record number of liquidations in shorts again reached the $1 trillion mark for the first time since November.
Nearly $500 million has been liquidated since Friday, the highest level since October 2022 according to Coinalyze. This indicator means that more than 70% of traders recorded losses – exchanges closed their positions with leverage due to partial or complete loss of the initial margin of the trader.
Crypto exchange OKX experienced a $256 million short liquidation on Friday alone, the most of any crypto exchange, followed by $125 million on Binance and $42 million on Huobi, according to data from CoinGlass.
Major cryptocurrencies are up 20% on average since last week, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin jumped 22% to over $21,000, Ether rose to almost $1,600, while Solana jumped almost 70% (trading at $24 on Monday, compared to $9 in the last week of December).
The rise in cryptocurrencies came amid forecasts of weakening inflation in the United States – short-term inflation expectations fell in early January to the lowest level in two years, and a separate report showed that the consumer price index rose by 6.5% in 12 months (this is less than a jump by 7.1% in November and well below the peak of 9.1% in June); as well as news that the lawyers of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX have found billions of dollars of assets.
In general, analysts offer very diverse forecasts for Bitcoin in 2023: some say that the coin will almost quadruple its previous record and reach $250,000, others say that the flagship cryptocurrency will fall to $5,000, which will be its lowest price.