Bitcoin Monday’s price losses wiped out a huge leveraged bullish bet.
The $61.5 million deal was forcibly closed by cryptocurrency exchange HTX, marking the largest single liquidation in the last 24 hours, according to data source Coinglass.
The so-called sell-off occurred as bitcoin fell from Saturday’s high of $68,600 to $64,400, erasing the weekend’s gains in a matter of hours. CoinDesk has contacted HTX for comment.
The huge hit, large enough to suggest a concentrated whale or bottom position rather than a retail margin call, came amid a broader wipeout that saw $467.64 million in total liquidations among 137,422 traders, according to CoinGlass. Long positions accounted for $434 million of that figure, about 93% of the total, pointing to a market that was still positioned higher at the start of the week and turned red as bids disappeared.
Bitcoin futures alone recorded $213.62 million in forced closures, followed by ether (ETH) with $113.89 million and solana (SOL) with $19.89 million. Hyperliquid’s HYPE token added another $10.72 million, a notable figure for an asset outside the usual top-five liquidation ranking.
Fear reigns supreme
The selloff dragged Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear and Greed Index to 5 out of 100, a reading categorized as “extreme fear” that has only been matched three times since the index was launched in 2018: August 2019, June 2022 and earlier this month during bitcoin’s crash to $60,000.
Glassnode data reinforces the stress. The firm said on Monday that the seven-day moving average for net realized losses among recent bitcoin buyers was still approaching $500 million per day, meaning short-term holders continue to capitulate even after the initial February surge.
“While the intensity has cooled, the broader regime still indicates a market under pressure,” Glassnode noted, “and participants in the base-building phase continue to capitulate.”
Bitcoin now sits 48% below its October all-time high of $126,000 and 5.5% below its 2021 bull market peak of $69,000, a level that once felt like the ceiling and now looks like a floor that continues to be tested. Monday’s debris removed leverage, but the pattern remains intact: Traders reload long positions on every bounce and the market continues to punish them for it.
