Bitcoin’s slide to $65K triggers $1.83B liquidation cascade

Bitcoin fell about 8% from Tuesday’s $71,300 high to a nine-week low near $65,360, with TradingView printing $65,362 on Bitstamp. The drop set off $1.83 billion in cross-market liquidations and pushed traders’ attention toward the $61,000–$60,000 support band as Binance BTC supply rose to a three-month high.

Key Takeaways

Bitcoin dropped about 8% from $71,300 to roughly $65,360, with TradingView showing $65,362 on Bitstamp, the lowest level since March 29.
Total crypto liquidations hit $1.83B, with $1.58B of that coming from long liquidations. BTC longs accounted for $774.2M and ETH longs for $440M.
The liquidation burst was framed as the biggest since Feb. 6, when BTC fell below $60,000 to a multi-year low.
Binance’s BTC supply climbed to 659,000 BTC, a three-month high per CryptoQuant.

BTC Breaks to a Nine-Week Low as Leverage Unwinds

BTC’s selloff was clean and fast: a slide of about 8% from Tuesday’s $71,300 high to the mid-$65K area. TradingView showed $65,362 on Bitstamp, the lowest print since March 29.

That timing matters because it lines up with a classic positioning problem. When BTC breaks to a fresh multi-week low, the market stops debating narratives and starts dealing with forced flows. The session also extended BTC’s drawdown from a referenced local high of $82,800 to 21%, reinforcing that this wasn’t just a one-candle scare. Sellers stayed in control into the low.

The story’s stated backdrop was “increasing geopolitical risks surrounding the US-Iran war,” but the tape read like structure first, explanation second. The hard evidence is what followed: a derivatives liquidation cascade large enough to become the headline.

Inside the $1.83B Liquidation Print: Longs Took the Hit

The liquidation total was $1.83 billion across longs and shorts, with $1.58 billion coming from long liquidations, per CoinGlass data. BTC long liquidations were $774.2 million. ETH long liquidations were $440 million.

What stands out is the imbalance. This was not a two-sided squeeze where both directions get punished evenly. It was a long wipeout. When liquidations skew this hard to one side, it usually means the market was leaning the same way at the same time, and the move lower didn’t just find stops. It forced margin calls.

Mechanically, liquidations are forced closures of leveraged derivatives positions when margin requirements are breached. In a drop, that means long positions get closed into weakness, which can add market sell orders on top of organic selling. That feedback loop is how you get a cascade that feels discontinuous even when the spot move is “only” single digits.

Several traders framed the scale as exceptional in recent context. CryptoBanter analysts called it, “This marks one of the larger single-day events in recent months.” Pseudonymous analyst Byzantine General, citing Velo liquidation data across Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Deribit, said: “Highest $BTC long liquidations event since the infamous October 10 black swan event.”

The historical comparison in the story is even more direct for level-setting. The liquidation spike was described as the largest since Feb. 6, when BTC fell below $60,000 to a multi-year low. That anchors $60K as more than a round number. It is the threshold the market is already using as a reference point for “things got worse here last time.”

The Support Map Shifts to $66K, $61K, and $60K

Once BTC printed the lowest level since March 29, the support conversation tightened quickly.

Near-term, $65,000–$66,000 is the first line traders are watching for a bounce attempt. Analyst Colin Talks Crypto described $65,000-$66,000 as “a reasonable support level for a short-term bounce,” while keeping the bigger warning intact: “Re-testing $60k is still highly likely. And breaking below it later this year is definitely not ruled out.”

Below that, the next clustered zone is the low-$60Ks. MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe called BTC an “interesting zone” below $66,000 and pointed to the “area at $61K with the 200-Week MA for support,” adding: “Those are important to be looking at crucial zones of interest for support and I'm sure that I'll be going to accumulate more positions within this region.”

For traders, the 200-week moving average is a long-horizon trend gauge, roughly four years of weekly data. It’s not magic, but it is widely watched, which is the point. If enough risk is managed around the same reference, it can become a real liquidity magnet.

Then there’s $60,000. Multiple traders and analysts highlighted it as the key support zone, and the Feb. 6 comparison makes it the narrative’s inflection level. In this setup, $60K is being treated as the “last line of defence” framing, not just a chart level.

Signals That Decide Whether This Was a Flush or the Start of a Deeper Leg

The next move is less about who has the better macro story and more about whether the market can stabilize after a long-dominant liquidation event.

First signal: does BTC reclaim and hold the $65,000–$66,000 area on a revisit, or does it fail quickly and slide toward the ~$61,000 zone that van de Poppe tied to the 200-week moving average.

Second signal: a clean retest of $60,000. The story’s own benchmark for “largest since Feb. 6” points straight at what happens when BTC trades below $60K. If price action drifts there again, the market will treat it as a decision zone, not a curiosity.

Third signal: exchange supply on Binance. CryptoQuant data showed Binance BTC supply at 659,000 BTC, a three-month high. CryptoQuant analyst Arab Chain warned that rising exchange supply creates a “potential for heightened selling pressure in the market, especially if it coincides with declining prices or increased volatility,” adding: “Rising supply on exchanges can amplify price volatility and selling pressure, especially if inflows continue in the coming period.”

That’s not a guarantee of spot dumping. The unresolved piece is intent. The article does not establish whether those coins are arriving to sell immediately, to post as collateral, or to hedge. But as a market-structure signal, rising on-exchange balances increase sell-side availability and can widen the range if volatility picks up.

Fourth signal: liquidation follow-through. After a $1.83B event dominated by longs, the market either normalizes, or it prints another long-heavy wipeout that tells you leverage is still crowded and vulnerable.

When Liquidations Spike, Levels Matter More Than Narratives

I treat this move as a leverage reset first because the numbers force that conclusion. $1.83B total liquidations with $1.58B in longs is not a balanced unwind. It’s a one-way positioning error getting corrected in public.

The second-order effect is what it does to behavior. After a long wipeout, traders usually stop paying for upside aggressively until the market proves it can hold a level. That’s why the support map in this story is the real plot. $65K–$66K is the near-term “can it bounce at all” zone. $61K is the structural reference because it’s explicitly tied to the 200-week MA. $60K is the psychological and historical tripwire because the last comparable liquidation event is defined by BTC breaking below it.

I’m also not ignoring the Binance supply print. 659,000 BTC on Binance, a three-month high per CryptoQuant, is the kind of data point that can matter more after a breakdown than during a grind higher. If exchange balances keep rising while price is leaning on support, it increases the odds that any bounce is met with available supply. If balances roll over, it removes one source of near-term pressure.

Scenario one is the “flush” outcome. BTC revisits $65K–$66K, holds, and liquidation intensity fades. In that case, the $1.83B print reads like the market clearing out over-leveraged longs, not the start of a new trend.

Scenario two is the “deeper leg” outcome. BTC fails to hold $65K–$66K on a retest, drifts into the low-$60Ks, and the market starts trading the 200-week MA area around $61K as the last technical shelf before $60K. Confirmation would be another liquidation spike that is again long-dominant, showing leverage rebuilt too quickly and got punished again.

Scenario three is the “$60K becomes the whole market” outcome. Price tags $60,000 and the tape turns binary, either a defend-and-rebound attempt or a break that forces the market to reprice risk the way it did in the Feb. 6 reference. The invalidation for the bearish continuation read is simple: BTC holds $65K–$66K and Binance BTC supply stops rising from 659,000 BTC, because that combination would argue the cascade was mostly a positioning washout rather than sustained sell pressure.

Bitcoin’s slide to $65K triggers $1.83B liquidation cascade as $60K support comes into view