On Friday, 13 November, the price of Bitcoin fell below $70,000 for the first time since August. During trading the cryptocurrency lost 5.4% - to $67,628.
Price decline and trading
The decline continued after the digital asset dropped a further 3.8% on Thursday; overall its price fell by 9% over two days. As of 7:30 London time Bitcoin had partly recovered and was trading near $69,000.
Another major cryptocurrency - Ethereum - was down 6% in trading and again fell below $2,000. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile.
Position liquidations and market capitalisation
Over 24 hours investors had long positions on the crypto market liquidated for approximately $1.5 billion, according to CoinGlass. Forced sales of assets by traders using leverage further intensified the decline.
According to a derivatives trader at market maker AQC Tech, Sean McNulty, after Bitcoin fell below $70,000 forced liquidations closed leveraged long positions worth more than $1 billion. In October the total crypto market capitalisation fell by 9.1%, to $2.70 trillion; among the top ten only Monero finished the month in the green.
