Over 77,000 crypto investors burnt as Bitcoin drops on fear of Russian invasion

       Over 77,000 crypto investors burnt as Bitcoin drops on fear of Russian invasion

As Russia appeared to be on the verge of invading Ukraine once more, cryptocurrency values plummeted.

According to various accounts, a mortar round destroyed multiple structures in Ukraine's Donbas region, despite US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's plea to meet with his Russian counterpart.

The global cryptocurrency market is currently valued at $1.85 trillion, down 5.71 percent from the 17^th of February.

The demand for high-risk assets such as cryptocurrencies has dwindled. Bitcoin, the most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is selling at less than $39K against over $40K just weeks ago at the time of writing.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, also dropped. The value of the remaining top 20 altcoins plummeted.

For the day, 77,315 traders closed their positions. On Bitmex – XBTUSD, a single liquidation order for $8.67 million was placed.

Long bets, which are futures contracts in which traders forecast a price gain, account for the majority of these liquidations.

President Joe Biden claimed a "false-flag" incident may be underway, and a top diplomat said it sounded like Moscow is moving toward an "imminent invasion," as investor concerns grow over reports that the US increased warnings about a possible Russian attack on Ukraine.

Russia's officials have stated that no invasion is planned or taking place in Ukraine. The Kremlin, on the other hand, indicated that its recommendations were unsatisfactory and that resorting to unspecified "military-technical measures" was a possibility.

Russia has amassed up to 150,000 troops along the Ukrainian border in preparation for an invasion, according to US and NATO officials. They claim there is no proof that Russia has backtracked on previous this week's announcements.

Price action indicators are displaying an oversold signal on the four-hour chart, as they did on Feb. 3, which preceded a 20% price increase. The $46K resistance level may operate as a barrier, thus sellers are likely to remain active this time.

It should be noted, however, that Bitcoin addresses with at least 1,000 BTC in their balances added more tokens before the sell-off, indicating that the wealthiest crypto investors are backing BTC's recovery.

According to Glassnode data, the number of Bitcoin exchanges held fell to its lowest level in over three years on Feb. 13, continuing a bullish downturn that began in March 2020.