The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization dropped below the $60,000 threshold even as the bitcoin mining halving looms closer. 

Bitcoin hit $59,889 around 12:00 p.m. ET on April 17, according to The Block's Price page for bitcoin. The token rebounded to just over $60,300 at 1:05 p.m. ET on the same day, experiencing a decrease of $2,423, or 3.9%, in the past 24 hours. 

In the perpetual futures market, liquidations reached $15.54 million between 12:00 p.m. ET and 1:00 p.m. ET on April 17. Long liquidations were about $8.4 million and short liquidations totaled $6.02 million. Twenty-four-hour liquidations hit $214.28 million across 67,301 traders, according to the crypto data tracker CoinGlass.