Bitcoin's latest attempt at all-time highs met with large selling pressure on exchanges Friday, capping the rally beyond $70,000. The decline mirrored Tuesday's correction from $69,200, but wasn't as severe. Liquidations of leveraged derivatives trades reached $240 million during the day, less than Tuesday's $1.2 billion wipeout.

Illustration: izmaylovo-inn.ru

It's déjà vu all over again for bitcoin (BTC) bulls, who for the second time this week barely had a few seconds to celebrate a surge to a new all-time high before prices quickly reversed sharply lower. In the morning hours of U.S. trading, bitcoin took out the Tuesday record of about $69,200 and rose to $70,136, CoinDesk Bitcoin Index (XBX) data shows. But within seconds, selling took hold and less than one hour later, the price had tumbled about 5% to as low as $66,500. At press time, bitcoin was trading at $66,950, down marginally for the day. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) was modestly in the green.

Illustration: www.binance.com

Friday's decline from all-time highs liquidated $240 million worth of leveraged derivatives trading positions across all digital assets, much less than Tuesday's nearly $1.2 billion, according to CoinGlass. This was likely due to the fact that the market wasn't as frothy with leverage as before the flush earlier this week. Nearly 1,000 BTC of sell orders on Binance and OKX, worth some $70 million, posed an insurmountable resistance for further gains once bitcoin topped $70,000, quickly pushing the price lower.

To this point, today's reversal isn't as severe as the action on Tuesday, when bitcoin for the first time this week notched a new record high. Then, the price ended up tumbling as much as 14% before bottoming at around the $59,000 level.