Volatility and Market Liquidations
Bitcoin ($BTC) slid below $64,000 Monday afternoon, snapping a multi-day streak of marginal gains after bitcoin treasury giant Strategy sold 1,690 bitcoins to fund preferred stock repurchases. The downturn comes against a backdrop of regulatory and technical headwinds, including controversy surrounding the CLARITY Act vote and a BIP-110 chain split.
Yet, a few hours before tumbling, bitcoin appeared on course to replicate the price action that saw it breach the $65,000 threshold on Aug. 7. In fact, as shown by the daily chart, the cryptocurrency tapped an intraday high of $65,416 just after 6 p.m. EST on Sunday. Although it retreated slightly, the cryptocurrency held the $65,000 level into the early hours of Aug. 10.
After breaking support shortly after 8 a.m. EST, bitcoin tumbled to just under $63,770, marking a daily loss of nearly 2%. The downturn erased over $20 billion from its market capitalization—dropping it from $1.3 trillion to $1.28 trillion in under four hours—and wiped out more than $47 million in long leveraged positions over 24 hours. By comparison, short liquidations topped $12 million during the same period.
As reported earlier by Bitcoin.com News, Strategy, which sold the 1,690 $BTC between Aug. 3 and Aug. 9, achieved an average price of $64,262 per coin. Following the sale, Strategy’s $BTC holdings dropped to 840,447 coins, with an average purchase price of $75,385 per coin. Using the $108.6 million generated from the sale, Strategy repurchased 1,152,020 STRC shares.
Before the latest sale, Strategy also disclosed that it had sold 1,638 $BTC between Jul. 27 and Aug. 2 for approximately $104.7 million. Commenting on the latest sale, Strategy CEO Phong Le said:
