Major tokens slip as BTC reverses gains

Bitcoin dropped 3%, while ether, Cardano’s ADA, and BNB Chain’s BNB registered similar losses

Major tokens slipped as much as 7.5% in the last 24 hours as bitcoin reversed last week’s gains causing more than $150 million in bullish bets to be liquidated over the weekend.

Bitcoin dropped 3%, while ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA, and BNB Chain’s BNB registered similar losses. Solana’s SOL declined 7% to trade at around $120 on Monday morning, while meme coins dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) declined around 5%.

The move caused longs, or bets on higher prices, to record over $150 million in liquidations. Shorts, or bets against, saw a relatively smaller $9 million in losses. Liquidation refers to when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin.

Some funds attributed the losses to large sales from bitcoin miners and reactive sentiment to a German government moving a significant amount of bitcoin to exchanges.

Miners have been under tremendous pressure to sell given higher breakeven prices post-halving, Singapore-based QCP Capital said in a Telegram broadcast over the weekend. Miner BTC holdings have declined to the lowest level we have seen in the last 14 years, with total reserves lower by 50,000 from the start of the year.

The market has also been spooked by the emergence of a new large pool of supply. The German government allegedly sold nearly 3k bitcoins in the past few days with 47K more to go, it said.

Monday’s decline extends one of bitcoin’s worst weeks so far this year. Bitcoin prices have generally suffered in the last few weeks amid $1 billion in sales from large holders, dollar strength, and a strong U.S. technology index market.