Binance, Coinbase, and Bybit down as Bitcoin nears $70,000

Since hitting lows above $15,000 in late 2022, Bitcoin has shown impressive growth, rising by about 346%. Just this year, it surged by roughly 70%. On Monday, Bitcoin’s price reached all-time highs in euro and British pound terms, while its market capitalization in U.S. dollar terms exceeded its previous record high of $1.303 trillion.

Despite facing challenges like the collapse of the Terra Luna ecosystem and the bankruptcy of the FTX crypto exchange, Bitcoin’s approval of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. fueled a new wave of optimism in the crypto market.

However, technical issues hit major exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit, coinciding with Bitcoin’s rise past $69,000. According to experts, these outages were caused by increased activity from algorithmic trading firms, leading to disruptions in trading.

Unlike decentralized exchanges (DEXs), some centralized exchanges have the ability to set custom trading limits for individual market makers based on trust assumptions. This adds to the workload under bull market conditions.

Despite the glitches, Coinbase’s stock saw an 11.36% rise, while software company MicroStrategy (MSTR), which holds more than 190,000 BTC on its balance sheet, rose around 8.2% in pre-market trading.

The bitcoin price’s rally also triggered a surge in liquidations of leveraged bitcoin positions. The heightened volatility led to decent liquidations, with over $80 million worth of bitcoin positions being liquidated, with the majority ($60 million) being shorts.

Bitcoin mining companies also felt the positive impact, with CleanSpark leading the pack with an 8% gain, followed by Marathon Digital, Iris Energy, and Riot Platforms with respective advances of 6.6%, 6.8%, and 4.7%.