Peter Schiff, a well-known critic of cryptocurrencies and a staunch advocate for gold, has once again targeted Bitcoin on X (formerly known as Twitter), reveling in the cryptocurrency’s abrupt decline in value.
On April 12, he questioned his vast audience with the post, “Is there any news behind this drop, or is Bitcoin just falling because it’s been overpriced?”
While Schiff characterized the asset’s performance as “tanking,” an examination of the hourly price chart reveals a more nuanced situation.
According to the Bitstamp hourly chart for $BTC/USD, Bitcoin remained relatively stable within the $73,000 to $73,600 range throughout most of Saturday. However, at precisely 01:00 on Sunday morning (April 12), a significant downward movement occurred. The price dropped sharply from around $73,098 to a low point of $71,349 almost instantly. Although it has since shown slight recovery signs, bulls have struggled to drive it back up towards the much-desired $75K mark.
Bitcoin enthusiast Fred Krueger took jabs at Schiff’s long-standing opposition to digital currencies by commenting on social media: “Peter Schiff witnessing a mere 5% dip in Bitcoin after it surged by 6000 times since he began criticizing it—’Clearly this entire asset class was misguided.’”
A severe squeeze
The recent downturn may not be disastrous overall; however, it triggered an extensive wave of liquidations across the market.
In just one day alone, approximately 118,652 traders faced liquidation throughout various sectors of cryptocurrency trading. Within that same twelve-hour timeframe period alone,$189.85 million vanished into thin air.
Bulls who had taken excessive leverage were completely blindsided by this sudden drop; long liquidations accounted for about $132.80 million out of that total loss.
The most significant single liquidation event involved an enormous order worth $4 million executed on Bybit related to $BTC/USD transactions.