Bitcoin Climbs Above $63K, Crypto Longs Take On $600M in Liquidations

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded from the day's lows to regain $63,000 in European morning hours Wednesday, staging a quick recovery after briefly falling under the $61,000 level in early Asian trading hours.

Still, bets on higher prices saw nearly $600 million in liquidations, data shows, as major tokens declined for a second day. Futures positions showed no bias as of writing time, with longs and shorts equally making up 50% of all futures positions.

Major tokens stabilized dropping as much as 15%, CoinGecko data show. The broad-based CoinDesk 20, an index of various major tokens minus stablecoins, was little changed over the past 24 hours with losses of just 0.34%.

Ether (ETH) fell briefly under the $3,100 level on Tuesday night as analysts lowered the odds of a spot ETH exchange-traded fund (ETF) listing widely expected for May. Several other layer-1, or base, blockchains also dropped, with tokens of Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Cardano (ADA) losing 8% over 24 hours. Meme coins and exchange tokens outperformed with a 5% drop.

Overall market capitalization has declined by almost 15% in the past week. The total cap was down to $2.28 trillion on Wednesday morning, rising to $2.35 trillion by the start of active trading in Europe.

Meanwhile, some traders say that bitcoin price action suggests the asset is in a downtrend and investors must look to favorable macroeconomic developments before considering bets. The U.S. Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) is due to set interest rates and discuss the economy later today.

"Bitcoin remains in a downtrend, with a series of lower lows and lower highs,” Alex Kuptsikevich, a senior market analyst at FxPro, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “We will pay attention to bitcoin’s dynamics at the following support levels: $60.3K (correction to 61.8% of the last rally), $56K area (50-day average and 50% level) and $51.5K (consolidation area in February).”

“Crypto traders should now keep a close eye on the appetite for risk in the financial markets. Today, it will be heavily influenced by the FOMC and other major central bank meetings later in the week,” Kuptsikevich said.