The brief rally in the cryptocurrency markets following Friday’s U.S. jobs report quickly reversed in volatile action.
Bitcoin (BTC) jumped to $57,000 earlier today following the key report, only to the erase its gains and tumble below $55,000. The largest crypto was down nearly 4% over the past 24 hours.
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The selloff was broad-based, with major altcoins such as ether (ETH), solana (SOL), Ripple’s XRP (XRP) and cardano (ADA) posting 3%-5% losses over the same period. The CoinDesk 20 Index was down 2.7% over the day.
The price swing triggered nearly $50 million liquidations in one hour on the crypto derivatives markets as the volatility caught leveraged traders off-guard, predominantly longs betting on a continued price advance, CoinGlass data shows.
The price action happened as key U.S. equity indexes also turned lower early during their trading session. The Nasdaq Composite Index was 1.9% lower, while the broad-based S&P 500 declined 1.15% a bit more than one hour after the opening bell.