Bitcoin price holds above $62,000, volatility causes spike in liquidations

The bitcoin price surged briefly above $63,000 in early day trading on Thursday before pulling back into the mid $62,000 range. The price volatility has caused a spike in liquidations of leveraged bitcoin positions. 

The largest digital asset by market cap has increased by almost 6% in the past 24 hours, changing hands for $62,653 at 4:47 a.m. ET. 

The spike in prices over the past day led to a substantial liquidation of short positions on centralized exchanges. The volatility resulted in the liquidations of more than $273 million in bitcoin positions, with the majority ($169.50 million) being shorts, according to CoinGlass data .

Major altcoins such as SOL, the native coin of the  Solana network , and  ether also posted daily gains of 16% and 4% respectively, according to The Block's Prices Page .

The overall crypto market saw over $388 million of liquidated short positions in the last 24 hours, contributing to a total of $751.33 million in liquidations across various centralized exchanges, data shows.

Liquidations take place when a trader's position is forcibly closed due to insufficient funds to cover losses. This situation arises when market movements are unfavorable to the trader's position, resulting in the depletion of their initial margin or collateral.

Analysts' projections

Bitfinex analysts updated their price projection for bitcoin , with a forecast that the largest crypto asset could reach a high of between $100,000 and $120,000 by Q4 of 2024.

"Our analysis forecasts a conservative price objective of $100,000-$120,000 to be achieved by Q4 2024, and the cycle peak to be achieved some time in 2025 in terms of total crypto market capitalization," Bitfinex analysts said in an email sent to The Block.

The analysts described the inauguration of multiple spot bitcoin ETFs in January as having introduced "passive demand" for bitcoin.

"Demand is coming from investors that are largely price agnostic. They perceive bitcoin as a store of value rather than a tradable volatile asset, which has been the case for several years before the introduction of the ETFs," the analysts added.

The  GM 30 Index , representing a selection of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, has increased by 5.69% to 133.15 in the past 24 hours.