More than $ 800 million has been liquidated in the last 24 hours as market makers start to play on investor greed

• The cryptocurrency market has gotten extremely greedy, a correction is coming.
• Whales drive weak over-leveraged hands off the market.

The cryptocurrency market has shown its volatile nature once again, as more than 70,000 positions worth more than 800 million dollars have been liquidated on the trading platforms in the last 24 hours.

The market is exceptionally greedy

The Index of Greed and Fear in cryptocurrencies, calculated by Alternative.me, shows that the market has reached the territory of extreme greed when the price reached $ 18,000. When market participants become too greedy, the price may soon begin to correct. That’s what happened in December 2017, when BTC / USD hit the all-time high of $ 19,880. As the graph below shows, that became the starting point of a major downward correction.

BTC / USD weekly chart with greed and fear index

Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP on a roller coaster

The top three cryptocurrencies have seen another volatile day. Bitcoin (BTC) hit a new high of $ 18,500, Ethereum (ETH) retested the $ 500 level for the first time since July 2018, while XRP tried to settle above $ 0.3. However, the bulls’ joy was short-lived as the market entered a sell-off phase.

Bytb market sales data

Whales swim to readjust the market

All major assets lost more than 7% in less than two hours after hitting highs when so-called “market makers” began to liquidate over-leveraged investors. According to Bybt data, more than $ 800 million was cleared in the last 24 hours, with the largest single settlement occurring on BitMEX (nearly $ 5 million in BTC).

While cryptocurrencies have mostly recouped losses, investors might be very careful. Corrections often follow strong bullish price movements. According to the theory, the big investors known as whales may be behind these roller coaster price movements as they unload the price with a large sell order to buy an asset at a more attractive price. However, the Investors with excess leverage received margin calls, which caused the liquidation of the cascade positions.

Bitcoin and XRP technical indicators send warning signals

Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP charts

While prices seem to be slowly recovering, technical indicators mean investors need to be very careful. The TD Sequential indicator is about to present sell signals for BTC and XRP on its daily charts, which means that the price may take another hit in the next 24 hours.