Bitcoin fell to $59,175 overnight, its lowest point since early June, before recovering to around $61,500 on Thursday morning, according to data from CoinDesk. Nearly $1 billion worth of futures positions were liquidated between major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether, solana and others, to tokenized versions of stocks such as Micron Technology Inc (MU) and Sandisk (SNDK).
The drop triggered roughly $430 million in long liquidations in bitcoin-tracked futures, or bets on higher prices that were automatically closed when the price fell.
No catalyst prompted the move. Bitcoin has lost about 10% from Monday’s peak near $65,500, dragged down by the same forces that have dominated all week: an hawkish Federal Reserve, six straight weeks of ETF outflows, dwindling summer liquidity, and a June 30 quarter-end options expiration that traders say is keeping the market unstable.
Leading market maker Wintermute had pointed to $59,000 as the bear market bottom to watch in its note on Tuesday.
The bounce came from outside of cryptocurrencies. Micron Technology reported quarterly earnings after the close that shattered analyst estimates, sending its shares higher and lifting the broader memory chip complex.
SK Hynix separately revealed plans to go public in the United States for approximately $29 billion, one of the largest offerings in history. Samsung and Kioxia rallied in Asia on Thursday morning.
The same AI chip trade that sent the Kospi down 10% on Monday on fears that the spending boom was stalling is now what is stabilizing cryptocurrencies, and Micron’s results are being interpreted as confirmation that demand for AI memory is structural, not speculative.
The end of the quarter remains the live risk of the week. Bitcoin’s $59,000 low held, but $1.6 billion in leveraged long positions are clustered below $58,000, according to CoinGlass, meaning a break there would accelerate the decline.
Thursday’s PCE inflation data, the Fed’s preferred price indicator, is the next data that could move the market in either direction.
