Crypto’s upward march in recent weeks hit a bump in the road, with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies suffering a sudden, brutal crash.

Crypto’s latest bloodbath, plunging Bitcoin to sub-$63,000, has led to a colossal $538 million worth of crypto position liquidations within the last 24 hours. Given the severity of the pullback, investors and analysts wonder if this signals the end of the recent crypto bull rally.

Bitcoin Volatility Causes Spike In Long Liquidations

The Bitcoin and wider crypto market has been turbo-charged by the launch of a slew of spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Wall Street in January. The new investment vehicles have attracted billions of dollars since their debut, effectively becoming the fastest-growing ETFs in history.

However, the crypto boom quickly turned to gloom as cryptocurrencies nose-dived. The global crypto market cap has shed 7.1% since yesterday, having briefly fallen below $2.5 trillion.

Just last week, the bellwether crypto set a new lifetime high of $73,737.94. At the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading for $62,797, down 7.9% over the last 24 hours, per data from CoinGecko. So far, the OG crypto has not found a reliable floor. Trader Ali Martinez has examined ground below the $60,000 level, noting, “Some of the key Bitcoin support levels to watch are $61,100, $56,685, and $51,530.”

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“On the other hand, critical resistance points for $BTC stand at $66,990 and $72,880.”

Of the $663.17 million in liquidated crypto positions over the past day, just over $538 million were long positions, according to data compiled by CoinGlass. Over 246,087 traders were liquidated over the past 24 hours. 

Liquidations happen when a crypto exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position because of a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin or collateral. They happen due to a lack of funds to cover losses. Of the total liquidations in the past 24 hours, Bitcoin experienced roughly $190.91 million in liquidations, of which $147.78 million were long positions.

Altcoins Bleed Out 

The price of ether (ETH), the industry’s second-largest crypto, has fared even worse than Bitcoin. ETH recently changed hands at  $3,246.11. That’s a 9.9% decline since yesterday and 18.9% lower than it was this time last week when the crypto community was preparing for the implementation of the Dencun upgrade on the mainnet.

In the meantime, meme coins, which saw unprecedented rallies a few weeks ago, have incurred even deeper losses amid crypto-wide retracement.

Solana-based meme coins Dogwifhat (WIF) and Bonk (BONK) have slipped 22.8% and 15.5%, respectively, in the last 24 hours. And Floki Inu (FLOKI), one of the Ethereum-based doggy-themed meme coin rivals, has dropped 18.5% on the day.