The enthusiasm surrounding Bitcoin waned on Friday, a day after the launch of the first spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. Crypto traders seemed to engage in profit-taking, causing the leading cryptocurrency’s price to drop significantly after recent gains.
By late Friday morning, Bitcoin experienced a 6% decline, reaching a low of $43,413, as reported by CoinGecko. Declining further, at the end of the day it dipped to $42,632.
Thursday saw Bitcoin approaching $49,000, marking a significant high since 2021, coinciding with the commencement of spot ETF trading in the U.S. Unfortunately, this momentum was short-lived, and the price steadily declined overnight before sharply dropping in the last few hours.
In the past 24 hours, over $90 million worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated, according to CoinGlass data. This includes $76 million in long positions and over $14 million in shorts. Notably, almost $30 million worth of long liquidations occurred in the last hour alone as Bitcoin’s decline accelerated.
Interestingly, Ethereum followed a contrasting trajectory, experiencing a notable rise throughout the week as investors anticipate the potential introduction of spot Ethereum ETFs in the United States. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink expressed optimism about such offerings, stating that he can “see value” in them. BlackRock filed for a spot Ethereum ETF in the U.S. back in November.
For Ethereum, the week saw an almost 19% increase, with the price almost reaching $2,700 on Friday morning, a level not seen since April 2022. Ethereum scaling networks Arbitrum and Optimism also achieved all-time high prices for their respective tokens earlier on Friday.
