Bitcoin Falls Below $68,000 and $62,000 in Back-to-Back Selloffs, Liquidating Nearly $2B
Bitcoin dropped below $68,000 and later briefly below $62,000, with sources reporting between $1.02 billion and $1.8 billion in 24-hour crypto liquidations, mostly long positions. Sources differ on the scale and timing of the decline, and on the cause, citing a Strategy bitcoin sale, ETF outflows, and wallet activity tied to Mt. Gox.
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The Price Moves and the Liquidation Figures
Bitcoin fell below $68,000 in one session, dropping from $71,765 to $67,895 according to CryptoSlate, its lowest level since April. Crypto Briefing reported a later and deeper move, with Bitcoin slipping below $62,000 during Asia trading on Thursday and trading at $64,628 at press time, a decline of roughly 12% over seven days. The two accounts describe different points in the same downturn, so the lower figures should be read as a later stage rather than a conflict over the same price.
Liquidation totals also vary by source and window. CryptoSlate, citing Coinglass, reported about $394 million liquidated within one hour, with roughly $384 million from long positions. Over 24 hours, CryptoSlate put total liquidations at about $1.02 billion, of which about $902 million were longs. Crypto Briefing, citing CoinGlass, reported $1.8 billion in liquidations over 24 hours, including $1.5 billion in leveraged longs. The gap between $1.02 billion and $1.8 billion is not explained by either outlet, and readers should treat the higher figure as the less certain of the two until the underlying data window is confirmed.
Spillover Across the Market
CryptoSlate reported Ethereum down about 4% to $1,941, XRP down more than 3% to $1.24, and Solana, Dogecoin and BNB each down more than 3% over the same period. Bitcoin positions accounted for the largest share of forced closures, at more than $209 million, followed by about $87 million in Ethereum positions, $27 million in Solana and $11 million in XRP.
Crypto Briefing said most major assets, including Ether, BNB and XRP, were also under pressure as the pullback extended. Against that backdrop, Worldcoin (WLD) rose roughly 33% over 24 hours and Ethena (ENA) gained about 18%. Crypto Briefing attributed ENA's rally largely to backing from Coinbase Ventures. These two moves ran against the broader market and do not appear in CryptoSlate's coverage.
Competing Explanations for the Selloff
CryptoSlate attributed the move to a combination of technical breakdowns and a disclosure from Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, which said on June 1 that it had sold 32 bitcoin for $2.5 million to fund preferred stock dividend obligations. CryptoSlate noted the sale was small relative to global spot turnover but said its symbolic weight, given the firm's long-standing accumulation stance, unsettled trading desks. Glassnode, cited by CryptoSlate, said the decline took Bitcoin through the short-term holder cost basis of $76,900, the true market mean of $78,000 and the active investors' mean of $85,100, while remaining above the aggregate realized price of $54,000.
Crypto Briefing pointed to a different set of drivers. It reported net outflows of about $397 million from US spot Bitcoin ETFs on Wednesday and about $1.4 billion so far that week, led by roughly $1.2 billion from BlackRock's IBIT. It also noted a 116 BTC deposit from a Mt. Gox wallet to Bitstamp, after a separate $731 million transfer to a new address, and linked that activity to speculation about creditor repayments ahead of an October 2026 deadline. Crypto Briefing did not mention the Strategy sale.
CryptoSlate also quoted Pierre Rochard, chief executive of the Bitcoin Bond company, who rejected the idea that the Strategy sale alone could drive a systemic drop. Rochard pointed instead to capital moving into AI-related equities and to a resilient labor market and rising energy prices.
Worldcoin and the Maelstrom Thesis
Crypto Briefing reported that Maelstrom, an investment fund run by the family office of Arthur Hayes, views Worldcoin as a publicly tradable proxy for AI exposure, citing investor interest in companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI. Maelstrom said WLD remains down year to date and that negative perpetual funding points to heavy short positioning. It also estimated that ORBS holds about 283 million WLD and that scheduled daily unlock pressure falls 43% in late July, with an unlocked market cap near $2 billion. The fund's $5 target for August is its own projection, and no independent source in either article corroborates it.
Why It Matters
For Traders
Elevated leverage that was flushed out may leave the market more sensitive to further ETF outflows, so watch the $68,000 and $62,000 levels closely.
For Investors
Continued ETF outflows and possible Mt. Gox repayment supply are structural headwinds that could weigh on Bitcoin's trend through the coming months.
For Builders
Liquidation cascades on leveraged long positions show that protocols relying on tight collateral thresholds should stress-test rapid drawdown scenarios.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.
