Bitcoin Price Today: BTC Drops Below $80K, Triggering Liquidations of $200M Worth of Longs

Data from CoinGlass shows that crypto liquidations across all exchanges in the past 24 hours stand at $847 million. Of that total, $656 million corresponds to long positions while a total of 299,730 wallets were impacted by the latest selling spree.

Traders who had long positions on BTC faced liquidations of nearly $190 million during this period, oddly surpassed by $196 million worth of ETH long positions that were also wiped as the native assets of the smart contracts platform dropped below its $2,000 psychological support.

BTC Open Interest Drops to Pre-Election Levels

Bulls are currently struggling to keep BTC above the $80,000 threshold as a break below could result in an ever more dramatic drop for the top crypto asset – possibly eyeing the $65,000 level as its next stop.

The President’s decision to set up a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and his commitment not to sell any of these assets were widely anticipated by the market. Hence, this latest downturn could be the result of a “sell the news” moment for Bitcoin (BTC).

Open interest in BTC futures contracts has now dropped to the lowest level since November 6, meaning that most of the momentum that built up after Donald Trump’s victory in the Presidential election may have fully faded.

The macroeconomic backdrop continues to be relatively unfavorable for risky assets like cryptocurrencies as the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to keep lowering interest rates until the full impact of Trump’s tariffs is visible.

Today, the President imposed higher tariffs on Canadian steel in retaliation for a decision taken by the state of Ontario to impose a 25% levy on electricity exports to the United States.

The BTC daily chart shows that the top crypto asset shed most of its early gains during the beginning of the American session and it is now retesting a key support at $78,250. At some point, the price broke below this threshold but buyers showed up to scoop up BTC at those levels.

Demand for BTC at these levels could rise as long-term investors who believe that BTC is poised to rise to $100,000 see significant upside ahead if they enter a long position at these levels.

However, momentum readings favor a bearish outlook as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has dropped below the signal line while the MACD’s histogram shows three consecutive higher dark red bars, meaning that negative momentum is accelerating.

BTC Faces Strong Selling Pressure at $82,500

Moving to the hourly chart, we see that a double-bottom pattern was confirmed last night as BTC recovered once it touched the $76,000 level and managed to stay above the $77,500 level.

This prompted a short-lived bounce that is already encountering significant selling pressure as bulls try to recapture the $80,000 level.

For BTC to fully reverse its latest downtrend, the price would have to move above the $85,000 level. If that happens, then we could see BTC rising back to the $90,000 area.

However, the selling pressure seems strong and BTC and market sentiment remain heavily depressed. A short position at current levels offers the highest risk-reward ratio.

If this drop pushes BTC to retest yesterday’s lows, a short position that sets the stop price slightly above the Asian’s session peak of $82,500 would offer an RR ratio of 1.8.

However, traders should be cautious in a volatile market like this and avoid taking excessive risks in terms of position sizing.