Cryptocurrency Market Bloodbath | Exchanges Liquidate Over $1 Billion in a Single Day, DeFi Liquidations Hit $350 Million Setting a New Annual High

As concerns over a global economic downturn and escalating conflicts in the Middle East continue to grow, both the stock and cryptocurrency markets experienced a bloodbath today. Centralized exchanges (CEX) saw liquidations totaling up to $1.06 billion, while various DeFi protocols collectively faced over $350 million in loan and leverage liquidations.

Imminent Middle East conflict? Stock market massacre, Bitcoin drops to $52K

CEX Liquidates $1 Billion in a Single Day, Bulls Suffer Heavy Losses

CoinGlass data shows that CEX's futures liquidation amount exceeded $1.06 billion in the past 24 hours, with about $900 million in long positions and only $153 million in short positions.

Bitcoin and Ethereum traders were the primary targets of the liquidation, bearing over $700 million in liquidations, with the largest liquidation occurring in Huobi HTX's BTC-USD contract, valued at $27 million.

DeFi Protocol Liquidations Hit Annual High

Furthermore, on-chain analytics team Parsec Finance also pointed out that DeFi protocols saw a total liquidation amount exceeding $350 million in the past 24 hours, reaching a new annual high.

It is reported that the liquidation mainly came from collateral liquidations in lending protocols and focused on the following three assets:

• ETH: $244 million liquidated
• wstETH: $106 million liquidated
• wBTC: $69.8 million liquidated

Bitcoin Dominance Surges

With escalating tensions in the Middle East, potential global economic downturn, and concerns about the U.S. monetary policy landing hard, the Asian stock markets that opened first this morning and the 24-hour trading cryptocurrency market experienced widespread carnage, with the Nikkei 225 Index and South Korea's KOSPI plummeting by over 8% at one point.

Furthermore, Bitcoin has dropped below $52,800, and Ethereum has hit a six-month low of around $2,300.

Nikkei Index plunges 7%, continued selling in the Asia-Pacific markets, Japan's micro-strategy Metaplanet drops over 50% in five days

As a result, the global demand for safe-haven assets has also increased in the cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin dominance surging significantly this morning to a new annual high of 57.2%.

Bitcoin Spot ETF Sees Largest Outflow in Three Months

Moreover, the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF market faced its largest outflow in three months last Friday, totaling $237 million.

SoSoValue data shows that despite the sharp increase in daily outflows, the total trading volume did not differ significantly from usual.

However, with bearish news and market sentiment turning gloomy, tonight's opening of the U.S. stock market may see a larger scale of ETF fund outflows.