Bitcoin Drops $2,000 in 20 Minutes as Leveraged Positions Unwind

Bitcoin (BTC) fell about $2,000 in less than 30 minutes after trading above $85,600, triggering a broad liquidation wave across leveraged crypto markets.

More than $550 million in positions were liquidated over the previous 24 hours, including about $430 million in the preceding four hours. Long positions accounted for nearly all of the recent losses, as traders betting on higher prices were forced out.

More than 100,000 traders were affected. The largest single liquidation was a $26 million Ether (ETH) position on Binance, while Ether dropped about 4% to below $2,600. XRP, HYPE, DOGE and ADA also recorded losses of as much as 6% over the same period.

The selloff coincided with transfers from wallets linked to the U.S. government. The wallets moved 834 BTC, valued at $71.56 million, to Coinbase Prime and transferred another 40,285 BNB. Moving assets to an exchange can precede a sale, but the transfer does not establish that the government caused the decline or that the Bitcoin was sold.

The rapid drop and concentration of losses among leveraged long positions amplified the move across the market.