Crypto sheds $390B as BTC, ETH post worst week since FTX and

Bitcoin fell 17.3% on the week and ether dropped 22%, setting both up for their largest weekly declines since the November 2022 FTX-collapse panic. The broader digital asset market lost roughly $390 billion in value as about $7 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated.

Key Takeaways

Bitcoin fell 17.3% on the week and ether dropped 22%, the steepest weekly declines for both since the November 2022 FTX-driven crash.
Total crypto market capitalization fell by roughly $390 billion to just above $2 trillion, based on TradingView data.
About $7 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated across digital assets, with roughly $5.7 billion coming from long positions and the sharpest flushes on Monday and Friday, per CoinGlass.
Strategy sold 32 BTC (about $2.5 million), its first bitcoin sale in nearly four years, prompting investor focus on whether more sales could be needed to cover preferred-equity-related obligations.

Worst Week Since FTX: BTC -17.3%, ETH -22% as Selling Hits Spot and Derivatives

This week’s tape was the kind traders remember because it compresses multiple regimes into five sessions. Bitcoin finished down 17.3% and ether down 22% on the week, the worst weekly performance for both since the November 2022 panic tied to the FTX collapse.

The weekend offered only a thin pause. With traditional markets closed, prices stabilized modestly on Saturday, but not in a way that rewrites the damage. Bitcoin traded just above $60,000 and ether around $1,550, both still pinned near the week’s lows.

The FTX comparison matters less as a nostalgia marker and more as a volatility benchmark. Back then, the market was repricing counterparty risk in real time. This week, the repricing came from a mix of forced deleveraging, flow pressure, and a macro shock that tightened risk appetite into the close.

The $390B Market-Cap Hit and the $7B Liquidation Cascade

The drawdown was broad. The digital asset market shed roughly $390 billion over the week, leaving total market capitalization hovering just above $2 trillion, according to TradingView data. The same dataset frames that level as less than half of the nearly $4.2 trillion peak reached in October.

What stands out is how much of the move reads like positioning stress rather than a clean, discretionary rotation. CoinGlass data shows roughly $7 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated across digital assets during the week. About $5.7 billion of that was long liquidations, meaning bullish leverage got forcibly closed as margin ran out.

Mechanically, that matters because long liquidations are not “opinions.” They are market orders imposed by risk engines. When they cluster, they create air pockets: bids step back, funding and basis can gap, and spot follows derivatives lower as hedges and forced selling hit at the same time.

The timing reinforces the point. The most severe flushes were concentrated on Monday and Friday. That pattern is consistent with two separate waves of stress: an early-week catalyst that destabilized positioning, then a late-week macro impulse that pushed an already fragile market into another round of forced selling.

Pressure Points: ETF Outflows, Strategy’s First BTC Sale in Four Years, and AI Capital Rotation

Crypto had its own idiosyncratic pressure points, and traders fixated on them because they speak to marginal demand.

First was Strategy. The firm disclosed it sold bitcoin for the first time in nearly four years, unloading 32 BTC worth roughly $2.5 million. In supply terms, that is negligible. In narrative terms, it is not. Strategy has been treated as a one-way demand story for years, so even a tiny sale changes the conversation from “who is the next buyer” to “who might become a seller.”

The second-order effect is the investor question the sale triggered: whether Strategy may need to sell additional bitcoin to cover obligations tied to its growing stack of preferred equities. No plan was confirmed beyond the 32 BTC transaction, but the market does not need confirmation to reprice optionality. It only needs a plausible path where a perceived structural buyer becomes a conditional seller.

ETF flows added another layer. Bitcoin ETFs continued to see outflows during the week, extending a bleed that traders have been watching as a proxy for spot demand. The source material does not provide totals, but the direction matters in a week where liquidity was already being pulled out by liquidations.

Then there’s the capital competition angle. K33 Research head Vetle Lunde tied some of the ETF outflows to rotation into AI investments, pointing to AI-related stocks at record highs and anticipated IPOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX. His framing was blunt: “the opportunity cost of holding BTC.”

This is not a measurable causal chain in the data provided, but it is a coherent allocator narrative. When a competing risk asset complex is making new highs and offering fresh supply via IPOs, it raises the hurdle rate for holding an asset that is simultaneously experiencing volatility and forced deleveraging.

AI also showed up as a direct crypto-specific risk. Zcash (ZEC) fell more than 40% after researchers used Anthropic’s latest AI model to uncover a critical vulnerability in Zcash’s privacy system. That kind of headline doesn’t need to be systemic to matter. In a risk-off week, it reinforces the idea that protocol risk can be repriced suddenly, and it pushes traders to reduce exposure rather than debate edge cases.

Next Signals: Whether Stabilization Holds as Rates and Risk Appetite Reset

The next move hinges on whether the weekend stabilization was a pause or a base.

The first signal is whether liquidation pressure actually clears after a roughly $7 billion weekly wipeout. If long liquidations re-accelerate on the next high-volatility session, it suggests positioning is still too crowded and the market has not found a stable leverage equilibrium.

Second is Strategy. Any further disclosures will matter because the market is now explicitly focused on whether additional BTC sales could be needed to cover preferred-equity-related obligations. The 32 BTC sale was small, but it reopened a question traders had largely stopped pricing.

Third is ETF flow persistence. Outflows were described as ongoing, and the market will be sensitive to whether that stabilizes or continues, especially if the AI-rotation narrative remains dominant while AI-related stocks stay at record highs and the IPO calendar stays in focus.

Finally, macro is the gating factor. Friday’s stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report revived rate-hike fears, pushed U.S. Treasury yields higher, and coincided with the Nasdaq 100’s worst day since the tariff-driven selloff in April 2025. If yields keep following through and rate expectations keep shifting toward hikes if inflation stays high, financial conditions tighten. Crypto usually doesn’t get to ignore that backdrop.

How I'm Reading BTC, ETH worst weekly drop since

I’m treating this week’s move as a deleveraging event first, and a spot-led trend change second. The numbers support that ordering. Roughly $7 billion in liquidations with about $5.7 billion in longs tells me positioning was leaning the wrong way into a volatility spike, and the Monday and Friday flushes suggest the market needed multiple rounds to clear risk.

Scenario one is stabilization with improving market structure. In that world, liquidation totals should fade after a week like this, not reappear at the same scale. BTC holding around the post-flush zone just above $60,000 and ETH holding around $1,550 would not be “bullish” by itself, but it would signal that forced sellers are largely done and that marginal flows are no longer one-directional. Confirmation would look like quieter derivatives conditions, meaning fewer forced closures and less evidence of longs getting repeatedly trapped.

Scenario two is that this was only the first leg of a broader downtrend, with macro acting as the accelerant. The Friday sequence matters here: stronger jobs data, rate-hike fears, surging Treasury yields, and a Nasdaq 100 air pocket. If that macro repricing persists, crypto’s weekend calm can unwind quickly when traditional markets reopen and cross-asset risk gets repriced again. Invalidation of the stabilization thesis would be straightforward: another session where long liquidations dominate and price revisits the lows without any meaningful reduction in forced selling.

Scenario three is a flow-driven grind lower rather than a crash, led by persistent ETF outflows and narrative damage. The Strategy sale is the tell. Thirty-two BTC is irrelevant for supply, but it matters because it introduced doubt about a buyer of last resort and raised the question of preferred-equity-related obligations. If that question stays unanswered and ETF outflows continue, the market can drift lower even without another liquidation cascade.

My base case is that the market is now trading a tighter set of variables than it was a week ago: liquidation intensity, ETF flow direction, Strategy disclosures, and the path of yields after the jobs-driven rate reset. The core thesis gets confirmed if the next volatility spike produces far fewer long liquidations than Monday and Friday did, while BTC and ETH hold near the post-flush levels despite higher yields and ongoing ETF flow scrutiny.

Crypto sheds $390B as BTC, ETH post worst week since FTX and liquidations hit $7B