The Bitcoin buzz calmed on Friday, a day after the first Bitcoin ETFs began trading in the US, as cryptocurrency traders appeared to sell off the news – sending the price of the leading cryptocurrency lower after days of recent gains.
Late Friday morning, Bitcoin was down nearly 6% to a low of $43,413 according to CoinGecko data, though it is rising again at the current price of $43,547 as of this writing.
Bitcoin approached $49,000 on Thursday for the first time since 2021 as the first spot ETFs began trading in the US. However, this momentum was short-lived, and the price continued to fall overnight until it fell sharply in the last two hours.
More than $90 million worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGlass, including $76 million worth of long positions and more than $14 million worth of short positions. Nearly $30 million worth of long liquidations took place in the last hour alone as Bitcoin’s decline accelerated.
Interestingly, Ethereum has seen the opposite trajectory, rising considerably this week as cryptocurrency investors consider the possibility ahead of US Ethereum ETFs. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, said this CNBC On Friday, he said he could “see the value” in such offers. The Wall Street firm filed for a US spot ETF in November.
Ethereum is up nearly 19% this week, touching nearly $2,700 on Friday morning for the first time since April 2022. Ethereum scaling networks Arbitrum and Optimism also set all-time high prices for their tokens earlier on Friday.