The price of BTC unexpectedly fell more sharply in the afternoon with over $160 million worth of cryptoasset liquidated within an hour and $250 million liquidated in the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin price fell 5% to $29,000, with the price currently trading at $29,253. In the past 24 hours, the price of BTC recorded a low and a high of $29,012 and $30,470 respectively.
The price of Ethereum also plunged sharply below the $2,000 level. The price of ETH fell over 6% in the last 24 hours, with the price currently trading at $1,988. The 24-hour low and high are $1,980 and $2,121 respectively.
Other altcoins including BNB, XRP, Cardano, Dogecoin, Polygon (MATIC), and Solana fell nearly 5%, with the global crypto market falling 3% to $1.23 trillion in the last 24 hours.
Data from Coinglass revealed a massive liquidation of longs exceeding $175 million today, April 19. Almost 75k traders liquidated their assets in the last 24 hours, with the highest liquidity from Binance worth $3.02 million.
Global stock markets fell after the Bank of England and the European Central Bank considered raising interest rates further to drag inflation below target rates. Traders took a cautious approach as US Fed officials James Bullard and Raphael Bostic also supported higher terminal rates between 5.50% to 5.75% and another 25 basis point rate hike in May.
Annual UK consumer price index (CPI) inflation reached 10.1% compared to expectations of 9.8%. Meanwhile, the core inflation of the European zone also recorded a high reading while the annual inflation rate fell to 6.9% in March.
U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) effectively surged higher to trading levels, causing Bitcoin and Ethereum prices to fall sharply in response.
Well-known crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe is of the opinion that among other factors Bitcoin failed to hold on to the $29,700-29,800 trading level. Miles Deutscher said BTC's 200-hour price action was wiped out in just 13 minutes as the price of Bitcoin fell below $30,000.
