Bitcoin Slides Nearly 20% in June as $715M in Crypto Long Bets Collapse

Bitcoin briefly plunged to a fresh year-to-date low of $58,035 on Thursday morning before staging a relief rally that saw it trade flat around $59,500. Despite recovering its 24-hour losses, the intra-day chart reveals severe volatility and erratic price swings.

After plummeting below $59,000 on Wednesday, bitcoin triggered violent price action. Within hours, it recovered above $61,000 before dropping again, then rallied past $61,800 early Thursday. The surge lost momentum before reaching $62,000, but prices held above $61,000 until 9:20 a.m. EDT. The subsequent drop to $58,000 took less than 30 minutes, followed by a rapid recovery back above $59,000. At the time of writing, bitcoin traded slightly above $59,500, a mere 0.4% drop over 24 hours, leaving its market capitalization under $1.2 trillion.

The volatile movement triggered massive forced liquidations across the derivatives market. Over the past 24 hours, $1.01 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out across the crypto economy, with long bets accounting for $715 million. Bitcoin long positions alone accounted for approximately $339 million of the total $484 million in bitcoin liquidations.

Boris Alergant, head of GTM at Babylon Labs, attributed the sell-off to a broader market-wide risk-off reset rather than a crypto-specific issue. “It reacts to liquidity, rates, positioning, and institutional flows in the same way other major macro assets do,” Alergant said. He added that AI competition for investor mindshare and capital may keep pressure on bitcoin through the summer, alongside broader repositioning in growth and technology exposure.

With June closing, bitcoin is increasingly poised to record monthly losses north of 20%. Since reaching an all-time high above $126,000 in October 2025, bitcoin has lost more than half of its peak value.

Source: https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-slides-nearly-20-in-june-as-715m-in-crypto-long-bets-collapse/