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Wild Bitcoin, Ether Price Swings Amid Spot ETH ETF Decision Trigger $350M Liquidations

U.S. regulators approved listing spot ETH ETFs but have not yet cleared to trade.

Updated May 26, 2024, 9:12 p.m. Published May 23, 2024, 10:29 p.m.
Ether (ETH) price on May 23 (CoinDesk)
Ether (ETH) price on May 23 (CoinDesk)

Crypto prices endured wild swings on Thursday as traders anxiously awaited a U.S. regulatory decision to list spot-based ether exchange-traded funds.

Read more: Ether ETFs Clear Major Hurdle, Though SEC Hasn't Cleared Them for Trading Yet

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Within a nerve-wracking hour leading up to the eventual approval, ETH first tumbled to $3,500 at around U.S. traditional market closing time, then surged to near $3,900 as the first unconfirmed reports of an approval appeared to eventually settle above $3,800 following the confirmation.

Bitcoin saw a similarly hectic episode sinking to the low-$66,000s, then spiking to $68,300 before paring gains below $68,000. However, ETH performed stronger, advancing 1.5% over the past 24 hours, compared to BTC's almost 3% decline during the same period. The broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index was down 1.6% during the day.

Amid the volatile episode, liquidations across all leveraged crypto derivative positions soared to over $350 million during the day, the most since May 1, CoinGlass data shows.

Ether (ETH) price on May 23 (CoinDesk)
Ether (ETH) price on May 23 (CoinDesk)

Liquidations happen when an exchange closes a leveraged trading position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial money down or "margin" – if the trader fails to meet the margin requirements or doesn't have enough funds to keep the trade open.

The lion's share of the wiped-out positions were longs betting in rising prices, worth roughly $250 million, suggesting that over-leveraged traders were caught off-guard by the sudden price plunge. ETH traders took the biggest hit, with $132 million of liquidations, followed by $70 million in BTC derivatives liquidations.

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Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

GP Basic Image

Ano ang dapat malaman:

  • As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
  • GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
  • Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

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