Bitcoin (BTC) slid below $62,000 on Thursday, triggering more than $1.5 billion in leveraged crypto liquidations over 24 hours as forced selling deepened its steepest drop in months.
Key Points:
- Bitcoin fell under $62,000 in Asia trading, its weakest level in months.
- More than $1.5 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated within a single day.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs lost roughly $1 billion this week, extending a record outflow streak.
Bitcoin Liquidations Top $1.5B
The token slipped under the level early Thursday in Asia, its weakest reading since February, as a cascade of forced selling accelerated the rout.
Long positions absorbed nearly all of the damage. Bitcoin bets alone made up more than $800 million in those losses, and prices traded down close to 5% on the day before briefly steadying.
Ether (ETH) traders saw another $386 million wiped out, and most large tokens fell in step. Solana (SOL) and other large caps posted steeper percentage losses, while the $60,000 mark moved within striking distance.
The slide extended a punishing run for institutional demand. U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds drained roughly $1 billion this week, stretching their longest streak of net outflows on record. May proved the worst single month of 2026 for those products.
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Presto Research Cites AI Rotation
Analysts at Presto Research tied the selloff to a broader rotation, with traders favoring gold and artificial-intelligence stocks over crypto. The firm said this year's sharpest drawdowns lined up with rallies in those assets as investors trimmed bets on Federal Reserve rate cuts. Pending listings from large technology firms have pulled speculative money further from the sector.
A lasting rebound, by that view, may depend more on cooling inflation and renewed appetite for liquidity-sensitive assets than on any crypto headline.
Other observers pointed to leverage and souring sentiment. Speculation over old Mt. Gox coin movements added to the unease. "BTC at $50k is a level some are starting to talk about," Paul Howard of liquidity provider Wincent wrote in a note.
The rout leaves Bitcoin roughly 51% beneath the record $126,277 it reached in October 2025. It caps weeks of pressure that built after Strategy disclosed its first net reduction of Bitcoin in years, generating about $2.5 million from a sale at an average near $77,135 per coin. That move broke from Michael Saylor's long-standing refusal to sell, and it unsettled traders even though the firm still holds more than 818,000 coins.
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