The tokens surged and sank as new features in the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem went live.
Futures tracking ApeCoin’s APE tokens lost about $36 million in liquidations during a volatile 24 hours, data show.
Liquidations in the crypto market occur when a trader has insufficient funds to fund a margin call, which is when an exchange asks for extra collateral to keep the trading position funded.
APE prices jumped to more than $27.50 on Thursday evening from $19 on Wednesday, before profit-taking saw the tokens decline to as low as $20.48 in Asian morning hours on Friday. Such movement occurred in an otherwise little-changed crypto market, with bitcoin and ether moving just 2% in the past 24 hours.
APE has more than doubled from mid-April’s levels around $11, with the volatility leading to an increase in trading volume on the token’s futures. Liquidations have increased in parallel: APE futures have racked up millions of dollars in losses – higher than usual – for their traders several times in the past weeks.
Thursday’s volatility came as virtual pockets of land went on sale on the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem, confirming rumors from last week. The land was sold exclusively for APE through a Dutch auction, which probably drove APE prices up.
Most of the liquidations on APE in the past hours arose from short traders, or those betting against higher prices. Some $24.88 million worth of shorts were liquidated, data show, compared with $11 million in longs.
Crypto exchange OKX saw $10 million in liquidations, the most among all exchanges, followed by Binance at $9 million and Bybit at $7.98 million.
The higher-than-usual liquidation activity on APE was comparable to $37 million on ether futures, making them one of the most traded crypto futures in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin futures, however, continued to lead with in excess of $66.29 million.