Bitcoin plummets to $ 60,000 in a flash

Bitcoin BTC $65,555.04 Mezo Wrapped BTC -7.91% Market capitalization $37.32 million VOL. 24 hours $8.43 billion fell by almost 30% in a week to around $ 60,000, the worst one-day drop since the FTX crash in 2022. The sharp decline in the price has sparked a wave of debate among traders and analysts, who see it not as a gradual reaction to macroeconomic factors but as a forced and chaotic exit of major players from their positions.

Crypto trader Flood called the drop «the most aggressive selling in years» and suggested that it could have been caused by a massive sell-off of tens of billions of dollars worth of assets or problems with the balance sheet of one of the major crypto exchanges. Pantera Capital partner Franklin Bee put forward a version of a large Asian participant who used leverage on Binance, faced a liquidity crisis, and accelerated the sale in an attempt to compensate for losses in the gold and silver markets.

The topic of security attracted special attention. Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole, said that the drop could signal a more serious attitude to the risks associated with quantum computing, which potentially threaten bitcoin’s cryptographic systems.

Parker White, COO of DeFi Development Corp, saw another clue to the reasons for the collapse. He drew attention to the record trading volumes of BlackRock’s spot ETF on bitcoin — $ 10.7 billion in daily turnover and $ 900 million in options. In his opinion, this looks more like a large-scale liquidation through option strategies than a typical sell-off in the crypto community.

Over the past week, bitcoin’s movement has been accompanied by sharp liquidity dips, bringing the price back to the levels of late 2024 and bringing market sentiment down to post-FTX levels. Analysts note that traders are now cautious about any rebound, expecting a complete reset of positions and capital flows.