Altcoins, Cardano, and Avalanche posted mixed performance. It happened as the crypto market fell earlier of a significant options expiry for bitcoin this Friday.
On Thursday, cryptocurrencies keep declining in Asian hours, with some of the largest blockchains falling more than 7%. It happened before rebounding slightly in early European hours.
The movement came earlier of a $7 billion options expiry for bitcoin scheduled for Friday. During a low-volume holiday period, volatility and range-bound price movement marked large-cap cryptocurrencies. Options are hedging instruments that let investors buy the underlying asset at a predetermined cost on or before a specific date.
Cardano and avalanche dropped 7% in the past 24 hours among large-caps. At the same time, Solana and terra lost 5%.
Volatility in the market
The tokens of layer one blockchains climbed as investors looked beyond the Ethereum ecosystem. That narrative has driven values of SOL, LUNA, FTM, NEAR, and others higher in the past couple of weeks.
On Thursday, Bitcoin and ether prices posted a slight decline in early Asian hours. European hours noticed a sudden rise, with bitcoin accumulating nearly $500. That led to a temporary resurrection in other large-cap cryptocurrencies, with ADA rising to $1.36 from $1.31 and LUNA ascent to $87 from $82.
Data from analytics tool Coinglass showed that the uprise in prices in European hours generated more than $12 million in liquidations. Slightly more than 93% of these liquidations were in short positions or from investors who would bet on declining prices.
Liquidations mainly happen when traders and investors borrow funds from exchanges to bet on crypto prices. This time, they use a relatively small initial capital, one that is lost when prices reach a predetermined liquidation class. Thursday’s figures contributed to more than $450 million in liquidations in the past few hours, with over $275 million occurring only on bitcoin and ether futures.
