Massive liquidations in the Bitcoin market are shifting from rare surprises to routine occurrences.
On Saturday, Bitcoin fell as low as $66,586 during Asian trading hours, its lowest level since August; on Sunday it dropped further to $62,022, the weakest since July 14, before rebounding to around $64,800. Since October 21, Bitcoin has declined more than 20% in total and is heading toward a sixth consecutive weekly loss.
As of 5 p.m. Sunday, data from CoinGlass showed that more than 310,000 traders were liquidated over the previous 24 hours, with total liquidation value reaching $1.971 billion. The largest single liquidation order occurred on Binance in the ETHUSDT pair, worth $16.173 million.
On Friday, Bitcoin's decline had already triggered about $1.3 billion in long crypto position liquidations within 24 hours, with Bitcoin accounting for the bulk of that amount.
According to reports, institutional buyers have continued to retreat since the $6 billion theft incident at Binance on October 29, with US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs seeing nearly $3 billion in net outflows between October 30 and November 13.
Based on Coinglass data covering 28 futures exchanges, over the past year there were 13 instances of single-day liquidations exceeding $500 million, three of which exceeded $1 billion. That means on average, less than once a month, the market experiences a sharp swing severe enough to wipe out a large volume of leveraged positions.
Industry views differ on whether liquidations amount to evidence of market fragility. Sygnum Bank Chief Investment Officer Fabian Dori said such chain reactions merely reflect the concentration of leverage in the market. But Paul Howard, senior director at trading firm Wincent, said these types of liquidations have become more frequent over the past 12 months compared with earlier periods. He noted that many crypto investors pursue high-risk, high-reward trading styles and generally hold leveraged positions, so external events, including macro news that moves markets, cause more violent liquidations.
Sixth Consecutive Weekly Decline: Macro Headwinds and Regulatory Expectations
Bitcoin is heading for a sixth straight weekly decline, with multiple factors converging at the same time. On one hand, elevated oil prices and sticky inflation have strengthened expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise rates further, weighing on overall valuations of risk assets. On the other hand, markets expect Democrats to retake both chambers of the US Congress next year, which is seen as a signal that the industry will face stricter regulatory scrutiny.
Pressure from within the industry itself also cannot be ignored. ETF outflows have persisted, a shift in risk appetite driven by the artificial intelligence boom has accelerated declines in various tokens, and the fallout from the recent $6 billion Binance theft is still unfolding. Together, these factors form the backdrop for this round of declines.
FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich pointed to the timing distribution of liquidity. He noted that the use of derivatives "has become the norm even for investors with limited funds"; liquidity is relatively thin before the European trading session begins, and the absence of institutional money makes market direction harder to predict. He wrote that prices quickly hit dense stop-loss zones, triggering a chain of forced selling.
The Battle for Speculative Capital: Bitcoin Versus AI
Another explanation circulating in crypto circles is that Bitcoin is losing the contest for speculative capital. A selloff in artificial intelligence stocks may be creating more attractive buying opportunities for investors than cryptocurrencies, the opposite of the bullish logic popular a few months ago. At that time, some investors expected that once the AI trade cooled, speculative money would rotate into Bitcoin; now the reality is that the decline in tech stocks has given dip buyers a stronger reason to choose AI shares instead.
Noelle Acheson, author of the "Crypto Is Macro Now" newsletter, described the shift in market structure since US spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in 2024 this way: when Bitcoin becomes a macro asset, and with the advent of ETFs it arguably has, it must compete with all other macro assets for the crown of top risk asset.
Richard Galvin, executive chairman of crypto investment firm DACM, said an upcoming initial public offering by AI company Anthropic may be siphoning capital away from crypto markets. He said price performance looks very similar to the situation earlier this year around the SpaceX IPO pricing, and it appears crypto remains a short-term source of funds, especially for retail investors.
Not Everyone Reads It as a Crash Signal
Some industry participants also caution against equating large-scale liquidations directly with market fragility. Sygnum Bank Chief Investment Officer Fabian Dori wrote that such chain reactions depend on how leverage is distributed in the market and do not constitute a verdict on the underlying asset itself. He noted that large liquidations have long been an inherent feature of crypto markets.
Technical factors also played a role. Rich Rosenblum, co-founder of crypto market maker GSR, said this was a technical move, with Bitcoin breaking below its 200-day moving average around $73,000, which triggered a wave of liquidations and new short positions. He believes Bitcoin may be approaching a technical bottom.
This divergence itself is a key variable in current market judgment: under a trading structure dominated by derivatives, price swings will more frequently trigger forced closures, and whether the scale of liquidations reflects a change in market structure or a deterioration in the asset's fundamentals will determine how investors view the next leg down.
Comments