Bitcoin price fell below 60 thousand dollars and continued its decline in the last 10 days to approximately 19 thousand dollars. As volatility increased as selling pressure accelerated in the cryptocurrency market, more than $155 million in long positions were liquidated in just 60 minutes. The total liquidation amount in the last 24 hours reached 1.5 billion dollars.
Pressure increased after employment data
The fact that non-farm employment data for May in the USA came in above expectations strengthened the selling wave in risky assets. While the economy created 172 thousand new jobs in May, the market expectation was 85 thousand. While the unemployment rate was announced as 4.3 percent, employment data for March and April was revised upwards by a total of 93 thousand people.
Strong employment data has put additional pressure on crypto assets as it could weaken the chances of the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates. While Bitcoin was traded around $ 61,884 after the data, it decreased by 2.54 percent in 24 hours and then fell below the threshold of 60 thousand dollars.
Critical threshold in derivative markets
The 60 thousand dollar level is closely watched in the options market. Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Péquignot stated that this level is a key threshold for Bitcoin options. Deribit is known as one of the prominent platforms in the crypto derivatives market.
Mini dictionary: Gamma is the measure that shows how sensitive the option price is to changes in the underlying asset. Market makers carrying short gamma may seek to offset risk by selling spot or futures as the price declines.
A break below $60,000, as seen today, could push market makers to sell spot Bitcoin or futures contracts to offset short gamma risk. High leverage could also trigger new long position liquidations if price weakness continues.
According to the data, the open position size based on put options with a strike price of 60 thousand dollars on Deribit alone is over 1.2 billion dollars. Movements below this level are considered to carry the risk of generating additional hedging transactions and new liquidation waves.
Market comments and Strategy impact
Peter Schiff argued that the short-term support around $61,000 in Bitcoin is not permanent and said that the decline may continue. According to him, the selling pressure in crypto assets and technology stocks is reflected in other markets, including precious metals.
Pressure has also increased on the Strategy front, one of the largest institutional investors in Bitcoin. Michael Saylor stated that the Bitcoin community should unite across different lines of thought. The company’s unrealized losses rose to over $12.7 billion as Bitcoin fell below its average purchase cost.
Bitcoin is a global monetary network used by individuals, institutions, companies, banks, capital markets and states.
In response, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju stated that criticism of the recent decline should focus on former large investors rather than Saylor. Over the past two years, legacy major wallets sold approximately 1.24 million BTC to Saylor and ETFs, according to Ju. During the same period, Strategy’s sales amount was only 32 BTC.
On-chain indicators signal stress
According to Glassnode data cited in market commentary, the value of Bitcoin assets held by the US government was also affected by the decline. The value of this portfolio, most of which consists of confiscated proceeds of crime, dropped to 20.8 billion dollars. The amount in question remained well below the peak of $40.7 billion seen in October.
On-chain valuation indicators also point to pressure. Bitcoin’s MVRV rate decreased to 1.19. Below 1.0 on this indicator is generally associated with undervaluation, while higher levels indicate stronger market-wide profit sentiment. Analysts are also watching the recent crossover between the 4000-day and 365-day moving averages. While this outlook suggests that downside risk continues, similar periods in past cycles have also been seen to coincide with gradual accumulation phases for long-term investors.
The $59,000 region now stands out as an important test for Bitcoin. It is stated that if this level is broken below, hedging sales and liquidations may increase. In a possible recovery, the $65,000 resistance will need to be overcome again in order to balance the pressure created after the employment data.
