The Bitcoin price was trading at $52,618 as of 3:00 am EST, down 15% over the last 24 hours.
Data from TradingView and CoinMarkwtCap reveals that BTC dropped from a high of $65,557 on Aug.1, shedding more than 25% of its value to an intraday low of $49,050 on Aug. 5. The big crypto has painted a large daily candle, extending the losses made during the early Tokyo trading session on April 18.
The last time Bitcoin trade below $50,000 was almost six months ago on Feb. 14.
Accompanying Bitcoin’s performance are massive liquidations across the crypto market. According to data from Coinglass, more than $1.06 billion leveraged crypto positions have been liquidated over the last 24 hours, with $666 million liquidated over the last 12 hours alone.
Long Bitcoin liquidations amounted to $302.57 million, with the tally continuing at the time of publication.
This means that short traders were caught off-guard on BTC’s drop to $49,000. The largest single liquidation order occurred on the Huobi crypto exchange involving a BTC/USD pair worth $27 million.
The BTC price had formed a descending parallel channel on the weekly chart, as shown below. Bitcoin’s drop belo $53,000 saw the asset breadown this bearish chart pattern, confirming a downward breakout.
A daily candlestick close above the lower boundary of the prevailing chart pattern at $54,860 would boost the pioneer cryptocurrency toward the $60,000 psychological level and later to the middle boundary of the channel at $61,980.
Above that, the bulls could push the price of the pioneer cryptocurrency higher to confront resistance from the upper boundary of the chart at $69,430, coinciding with the 2021 all-time high. Such a move would represent a 31% uptick from the current price.
On the downside, the relative strength index (RSI) showed an extended downtrend far from overbought conditions, suggesting that the sell-off may continue over the next few weeks. This oscillator was facing downward, and the value had dropped from 60 to 42 over the last two weeks, suggesting that sellers have fully regained control of the market.
Therefore, a daily candlestick close below $50,000 would indicate the inability of the buyers to defend this level. The BTC price will drop back toward the 100-week EMA at $44,517 and later to the 200-week EMA at $36,000.