Bitcoin Falls Below $68,000; $394M Liquidations

On June 1, Bitcoin fell below $68,000, triggering about $394 million in crypto-derivatives liquidations in one hour after MicroStrategy disclosed it sold 32 BTC to fund preferred-stock dividends. The price slid from about $71,765 to roughly $67,895, a drop of more than 5% and the weakest level since April.

Derivatives platforms and exchanges closed undercollateralized positions as prices crossed technical levels. Data showed long positions lost roughly $384 million in the one-hour interval while short positions lost about $10.2 million. Over 24 hours, total liquidations reached about $1.02 billion, with around $902 million coming from long bets.

Bitcoin traders absorbed the largest share of liquidations, at more than $209 million. Ether positions faced about $87 million in forced closures, Solana about $27 million and XRP about $11 million. During the same period Ether fell about 4% to near $1,941 and XRP declined to about $1.24; Solana, Dogecoin and BNB each lost more than 3%.

When leveraged positions fall below required collateral, exchanges automatically close those trades. Those automatic closures create extra sell orders that can push prices lower and force further liquidations.

On-chain metrics showed the price slipped below several short-term support measures. Analytics recorded the short-term holder cost basis at about $76,900, the market mean near $78,000 and the active investors’ mean around $85,100. Bitcoin’s market price remained above its aggregate realized price of roughly $54,000.

MicroStrategy sold 32 BTC for about $2.5 million to meet dividend obligations on its preferred stock. Traders and analysts noted the disclosure, together with technical breaks, affected sentiment because the company had been known for holding bitcoin rather than selling.

Pierre Rochard, chief executive of the Bitcoin Bond company, commented: “The reality is that there is a massive parabolic spike in AI-related equities that is vacuuming up all excess liquidity.” He added that a resilient labor market and higher energy costs have reduced near-term expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts.