After teasing above $100k for the first time for the between part of Thursday, Bitcoin price dropped around 10 percent to almost retest the support level above $92k. The flagship coin traded around $97,680 on Friday, December 6, during the early Asian session, signaling yesterday’s breakout above $100,000 as a fakeout.
Following the sudden Bitcoin selloff in the past 24 hours, more than $900 million was rekt from the entire crypto market, mostly involving long traders. Bitcoin pairs were the most affected with about $498 million, out of which $421 million were long traders.
Major Factors Behind the Sudden Bitcoin Crash Today
Leverage Trading Cool Down
Bitcoin’s Open Interest (OI) surged to over $129 billion and a volume of over $466 billion in the past 24 hours, signaling heightened demand from investors. In the past 24 hours, Tether printed $1 billion on Ethereum, but the Bitcoin meltdown was inevitable as trading volume remained low relative to the social media hype.
Consequently, Bitcoin’s bull run needed a cool down to attract more buyers and gain more fuel for a rally beyond $100k.
Mixed Reactions Between Whale Investors and Retail Traders
Following yesterday’s Bitcoin pump, on-chain data shows that some whale investors took advantage of taking some profits. However, retail traders continued to purchase more in anticipation of further bullish trends.
For instance, Meitu, a major Chinese institutional firm that was pro-Bitcoin, revealed they had sold all of their 948 BTC holdings in the past 24 hours.
After the Bitcoin price drop, some whale investors rushed to purchase more BTC coins in anticipation of a fresh bull run in the near term.
Altcoin Takeover
As Bitcoin price retraced below $100k after yesterday’s fakeout, the altcoin industry has gained more bullish momentum. The TOTAL2 market cap, which excludes Bitcoin surged over 3 percent in the past 24 hours to hover about $1.57 trillion at the time of this writing.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin dominance slipped 1 percent to hover about 55 percent on Friday, signaling a notable shift to the altcoin industry. Moreover, Ethereum’s (ETH) price has broken out of a major resistance level of around $3,800 and is en route to its all-time high.
