Ethereum had entered a period of reversal after hitting $2,000 following the announcement of the date for the Merge. Since then, the digital asset had trended around $1,400 to $1,500 for a while. However, in the last day, Ethereum has seen significant momentum and demand, which has sent the price of the digital asset soaring. It finally broke above $1,600, leaving a trail of blood for traders who had bet against the cryptocurrency.
Ethereum Traders Lose Millions
Traders had bet massively against the price of Ethereum due to the decline in price. This quickly changed when the price of the digital asset went on another recovery trend. This time around, Ethereum’s price had quickly broken above $1,600, and tens of thousands of short traders were liquidated.
Data from Coinglass shows that thousands of traders were liquidated for more than 73,000 ETH in the last 24 hours alone. This came out to more than $115 million already liquidated in the last day. The vast majority of these liquidations came from short traders who had been betting against the market at a rate of 78.75%.
Ethereum also saw the largest single liquidation for the last 24 hours after a position of $1.98 million was liquidated on the ETH-USDT-SWAP on the Okex crypto exchange. The majority of ETH liquidations had also been recorded on the crypto exchange, with 59.35%.
ETH price recovers above $1,600 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
In total, more than $88 million in Ethereum shorts were liquidated, while only $23.87 million were long liquidations. It had also spilled out into the perpetual contracts with futures and options, where around $300 million had been closed in the span of one hour.
Getting Better Ahead Of Merge
The interest in Ethereum has no doubt surged significantly since the announcement of the Merge date. The initial hype had been what pushed Ethereum to the $2,000 level before the drawdown. Now, as the Merge draws closer, interest is starting to build once more, and this has pushed it above $1,600.
One interesting push behind the price recovery has been the accumulation of coins to get the forked tokens. A small group of developers had announced that they were planning to fork the Ethereum blockchain and keep it running on the proof of work mechanism.
The tokens from the fork will be sent to all current holders of ETH, and given how the BCH and other hard forks had gone in the past, investors are looking forward to taking advantage of this opportunity. With this trend, the number of wallets with 1,000 ETH on their balance had hit a new 15-month high.
ETH is currently trending above $1,600. With established support just above $1,590, the digital asset looks ready for another bounce.
Featured image from Coin News, chart from TradingView.com
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