Bitcoin falls below $90,000 and Ethereum and XRP plummet with $500 million in liquidations

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: Bitcoin falls below $90,000 and Ethereum and XRP plunge with $500 million in liquidations Original Link: Cryptocurrency prices took another sharp dive this Friday [image]5(, with Bitcoin plummeting below the $90,000 mark, while Ethereum flirted with a drop below $3,000 — all as crypto liquidations piled up across the board.

Bitcoin dropped to $88,420 earlier and was trading at $89,115 in the afternoon, marking a drop of over 3% in the last 24 hours, after the largest cryptocurrency fell from a price above the $92,000 level.

This is Bitcoin’s second major drop in the past week, after the coin fell below the $85,000 mark on Monday before recovering the next day.

This continues a trend of sharp volatility for Bitcoin in recent weeks, including a drop to a seven-month low of around $81,000 at the end of November. That decline came after Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $126,080 in early October. Bitcoin has depreciated by nearly 30% since then.

As is often the case, other major altcoins are also seeing steeper losses today. Ethereum is down 4%, reaching $3,011, while XRP is also down 4%, to $2.01. Solana is down nearly 7%, to $132, and Dogecoin is down over 7%, to $0.1370.

Liquidations in the past day have totaled more than $493 million so far, according to available data, after briefly topping the $500 million mark. Bitcoin leads the liquidations with $191 million, and the vast majority — $412 million — of the total corresponds to long positions, i.e., bets on the asset’s appreciation.

The reason for the decline in cryptocurrency prices was not immediately clear, especially since major stock market indexes are slightly higher today, with the S&P 500 approaching yet another all-time high, as investors increasingly expect a third interest rate cut this year at next week’s Federal Open Market Committee )FOMC( meeting.

Shares of crypto-related companies, however, are falling along with digital assets. Bitcoin miner CleanSpark )CLSK( is down 8%, while others such as Bitfarms )BITF( and Hive Digital )HIVE( are down about 5% today. Some trading platforms are posting drops of approximately 1% to 3% today.