Bitcoin Crashes to $62,000 as $1.5 Billion in Leveraged Longs Get Flushed Out

Quick overview

It was an ugly night for crypto. Bitcoin broke below $62,000 during Asia trading hours Thursday morning, touching its lowest level in months and triggering a wave of forced selling that cleared out more than $1.5 billion in leveraged long positions across the market in a single 24-hour stretch.

CoinGlass data put the damage at over 208,000 traders liquidated. Bitcoin holders took the biggest hit at more than $800 million, with ether adding another $386 million on top of that. When prices move that fast and that far, traders using leverage do not get the chance to manage their way out. The positions just get closed automatically, which then pushes prices lower still and sets off the next round.

The selling did not come out of nowhere. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have been bleeding all week, with roughly $1 billion in net outflows already recorded, extending what SoSoValue data shows is already a record streak of withdrawals. When institutional money keeps walking out the door day after day, the spot market loses the support it needs to hold key levels, and leveraged traders end up exposed.

Analysts at Presto Research put out a note Thursday that framed the problem clearly. Bitcoin’s worst stretches this year have lined up almost exactly with periods when AI stocks and gold were running hard. As investors keep pushing back their expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts, money has been rotating toward assets that do not need cheap liquidity to work. Bitcoin, which tends to thrive in loose financial conditions, has been on the wrong side of that trade.

The implication in Presto’s read is that a genuine recovery probably needs the macro story to shift first. Until inflation data gives the Fed a reason to ease, and until rate cut expectations start moving back up, bitcoin is competing for capital against a gold market at record highs and an AI stock rally that has not shown many signs of slowing down.

Bitcoin bounced back toward $64,000 later in the session, the kind of move that often follows an oversold flush. Whether it holds is a different question.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR See More

Sophia Cruz

Financial Writer - Asian & European Desks

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.

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