Bitcoin’s Monday’s price decline wiped out massive leveraged bullish bets.
Data from data source Coinglass shows that $61.5 million worth of trades were forced to liquidate by cryptocurrency exchange HTX, which was the largest single liquidation in the past 24 hours.
The so-called liquidation occurred when Bitcoin fell from Saturday’s high of $68,600 to $64,400, erasing weekend gains within hours. CoinDesk reached out to HTX for comment.
The huge hit — enough to indicate a concentration of whale or fund positions rather than retail margin calls — came amid broader losses, with liquidations totaling $467.64 million among 137,422 traders, according to CoinGlass data. Among them, long positions accounted for $434 million, or about 93% of the total, which showed that the market was still on the rise this week, but when the buying disappeared, the market was washed away.
Bitcoin futures alone were forced to close at $213.62 million, followed by ethereum (ETH) at $113.89 million, and solana (SOL) at $19.89 million. Hyperliquid’s HYPE token added another $10.72 million, which is a noteworthy number for an asset outside the top five of the usual liquidation charts.
fear takes over
The sell-off brought Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear and Greed Index back to 5 out of 100, which is classified as “extreme fear” and has only been matched three times since the index was launched in 2018: in August 2019, June 2022 and during Bitcoin’s drop to $60,000 earlier this month.
Glassnode data adds to the pressure. The seven-day moving average of net realized losses among recent Bitcoin buyers remains close to $500 million per day, the company said on Monday, meaning short-term holders continue to capitulate even after the initial surge in February.
Glassnode noted: “While the intensity has cooled, the broader regime still points to pressure on the market, with players in the base-forming phase continuing to capitulate.”
Bitcoin is currently 48% below October’s all-time high of $126,000 and 5.5% below the 2021 bull run peak of $69,000 — a level that once felt like a ceiling and now looks like a floor that is constantly being tested. Monday’s drubbing cleared the leverage, but the pattern remains intact: traders reload longs on every rally, and the market keeps punishing them for it.