Bitcoin Price Recovers Above $67K Amid $60M BTC Liquidations

The Bitcoin price is trading at $66,059 as of 3:00 am EST, up 6% over the last 24 hours.

On Wednesday, May 15, BTC rose from a low of $61,299 to an intraday high of $66,480, an 8.5% rally that saw the big crypto reclaim the $66,000 level and flip the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA) back to support.

The rise in Bitcoin has been accompanied by a spike in Bitcoin liquidations. According to derivatives data from Coinglass, more than $159 million leveraged crypto positions have been liquidated over the last 24 hours – $114 million of these are short position liquidations. BTC’s climb above $66,000 has led to the liquidation of more than $48.93 million in short Bitcoin positions.

The largest single liquidation order occurred on the OKX crypto exchange, involving an BTC/USDT swap valued at $2.1 million.

The 50-day EMA provides strong support for Bitcoin price

BTC’s rally on May 15 saw its price edge above the 50-day EMA, providing a strong support area on the downside. This is the area around $63,500, as shown on the daily chart below.

This is corroborated by data from on-chain metrics data provider IntoTheBlock. Its In/Out of the Money Around Price (IOMAP) model shows that this level sits above within the $62,060 to $64,016 price range, where roughly 707,640 BTC were previously bought by approximately 1.8 million addresses.

This means that the price of the pioneer cryptocurrency sits on strong support downward, relatively robust enough to absorb any selling pressure threatening to pull the BTC below this level.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) was back above the midline, and the price strength at 57 suggested that the market conditions had flipped in favour of the upside.

In addition, the 20-day, 50-day and 100-day EMAs were facing upward, a suggestion that the buyers were still in control of the price.

As such, BTC could resume its uptrend by producing a daily candlestick close to $66,000. Above that, the next logical move would be the $68,000 and $70,000 psychological levels and, later the all-time high above $73,800.

On the downside, a daily candlestick close below the $65,000 psychologcial level would suggest the inability of the buyers to sustain higher levels. The psychological level the 50-day EMA, would provide the first line of defense. Additional lines of support would emerge from the 100-day EMA at $60,626 and the $60,000 demand zone.