Bitcoin Price Drops Below $60,000
The bitcoin price dropped below $60k in a massive market-wide crypto sell off Wednesday morning.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap fell below $60,000 for the first time since October 15 causing panic among many traders and investors in the space.
Although a surprise for many, analysts had predicted a price reversal after bitcoin had struggled to maintain above $63,000 after hitting recent all time highs.
There was light at the end of the tunnel though as prices bounced sharply at $58,000 and have recovered well since. The price of bitcoin at time of press remains $58,993 but what happens in the next few hours remains to be seen.
$500 million liquidated in less than an hour
While this kind of volatility is no surprise to experienced crypto investors, many people had expected that the recent surge in interest, attention from regulatory bodies and the ever increasing need for digital forms of currency on the world stage might have brought some much needed calm to the marketplace. This morning's events show that the market is still heavily manipulated by large and powerful players and demonstrates the best and most profitable investment strategy is to long term buy and hold.
The main culprit in this case seems to be leveraged traders once again. Industry leading trading platforms such as Binance and FTX allow traders to open margined positions with leverage of upto 125x in some cases. Then, periodically, the algorithmic trading engines used by the platforms set out to recover losses by trading against over leveraged positions which lead to massive market sell-offs. Data from TradingView shows $500 million in leveraged positions being liquidated across the market in less than an hour.
Many altcoins also had a hard time with Ethereum losing the coveted $4000 support level for the first time in a week. However, in a similar situation with nearest rival Bitcoin, there was solid buying support at key levels and prices bounced sharply. The current price of Ethereum at time of press is $4028. The situation across the market remains fluid with many coins experiencing even greater losses while others remain completely untouched.
A case for regulation?
On a large scale perspective the use case for decentralised autonomous networks remains high and investor confidence is strong. Until the relevant authorities introduce comprehensive legislation the cryptocurrency market will continue to be open to manipulation and market sell off’s like today’s will continue unfettered.
The question remains, if crypto wants to be viewed as a secure investment by professional capital management then this kind of market manipulation needs to be halted and controlled as soon as possible.

Author: Mark Harridge
Mark Harridge first came across Bitcoin and began to use its peer-to-peer payment network in mid to late-2011. He quickly understood that this technology would change the world. Mark is passionate about crypto adoption, from a macro economic and institutional perspective, and the numerous factors that fuel the relentless march towards individual self sovereignty and the decentralised society of the future.
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