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Tokens of major blockchain networks slid more than 20% in the past 24 hours amid a likely risk-off event days after 13 tokens were alleged as securities in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase.
The bulk of these losses came in the wee hours of Saturday, data shows. Solana (SOL), polygon (MATIC) and cardano (ADA) fell as much as 25% within hours – leading some onCrypto Twitter to wonder if a major crypto fund soldtheir holdings amid rather illiquid market conditions.
Such moves pushed weekly declines for these tokens to as much as 34%, the data shows.
As such, major tokens such as bnb (BNB), dogecoin (DOGE), xrp (XRP) fell over 11%. Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 3.6% while ether (ETH) slid 4.5%.
Crypto-tracked futures saw nearly $300 million in liquidations in the early hours on Saturday, data from Coinglass show, exceeding the nine-month record liquidation figures from earlier this week.
Crypto liquidation refers to the process of forcibly closing a trader's positions in the cryptocurrency market. It occurs when a trader's margin account can no longer support their open positions due to significant losses or a lack of sufficient margin to meet the maintenance requirements.