Price falls to $69,512 amid major holder selling and seven consecutive red four-hour candles
Bitcoin dropped below $70,000 for the first time since April 7, falling to $69,512.54 on June 2 as the largest publicly traded bitcoin holder, Strategy, liquidated positions and moved assets to exchange custody.
The decline coincided with Strategy’s sale of $2.5 million in bitcoin and a $30 million BTC transfer to Coinbase Prime wallet last week. Bitcoin has fallen more than 2% since midnight UTC, with seven of the past eight four-hour candles closing red, signaling sustained selling pressure.
Ether tracked the broader downturn, declining 1.7% since midnight and continuing to trade below the $2,000 level. The CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) lost 1.7%, with Chainlink (LINK), the index’s heaviest component, falling 2.5%.
Liquidations accelerated sharply. Coinglass data shows $768 million in 24-hour liquidations, split 84-16 between long and short positions. Binance’s liquidation heatmap indicates $68,600 as the core liquidation level, suggesting cascading sell-offs as positions were forced to close.
Options markets signaled rising hedging demand. Put/call volume split 65/35 in favor of calls over the past 24 hours. One-week 25-delta skew spiked to 17% from 11% a week prior, indicating elevated demand for downside protection. Front-end implied volatility (DVOL) recovered to 39 from multimonth lows.
Funding rates remained positive across venues at 0%-10% annualized, suggesting traders still held net long positions despite the selloff. Bitcoin open interest sat at $19.2 billion, essentially flat week-over-week. The three-month annualized basis rose to around 3%, up from 2.4% the previous week, reflecting tightening contango as longer-dated futures tracked the spot decline.
AI tokens outperformed the broader market downturn. Humanity Protocol (H) posted an 18% gain on Tuesday alone as part of a 278% rally since May 28, while Near Protocol (NEAR) gained 14.5% over 24 hours. The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season index climbed to 45/100 on Tuesday from 38/100 on Monday, signaling a modest shift toward risk appetite in smaller-cap assets.
Stellar (XLM) lost 6% since midnight but remained up 102% from last month, unwinding gains from a prior rally. SUI and ETHFI each fell 3%.
Total value locked across DeFi protocols stood at $78 billion, down 1.85% in the past 24 hours. The metric remains well above the October 2024 low, suggesting DeFi participants have not yet rushed for the exits despite broader price weakness.
