Traders of BTC-linked products faced a significant loss of $238 million in the past 24 hours, with the majority of the liquidations occurring during the early European and Asian afternoon hours.
Bullish wagers on rising crypto prices experienced a loss of $770 million in the same period as bitcoin dropped below $100,000, causing major cryptocurrencies to lose momentum in a volatile start to the week.
Solana’s SOL and dogecoin (DOGE) led the losses, each dropping over 10%, while ether (ETH), BNB Chain’s bnb, XRP (XRP), and Cardano’s ADA fell by up to 9%. The overall market cap fell by 8.5% as of Monday afternoon in Asia.
Tokens outside the top 20 and from various sectors also saw similar declines. Memecoin PEPE, layer-1 blockchain Aptos (APT), Gate.io’s GATE, and AI Agent platform Virtuals (VIRTUALS) each suffered losses of up to 18%.
Jupiter’s JUP was the only token to post a gain, rising by 3.5% in the past 24 hours after announcing a buyback of tokens from its open market. This buyback is expected to result in substantial net buying volumes over the next year.
Bitcoin fell below $99,000 early on Monday, as traders cashed out ahead of the first U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the year. Bitcoin’s decline mirrored losses in U.S. stock futures, with market participants digesting concerns over China-based DeepSeek’s AI model, challenging OpenAI’s narrative.
Futures markets mirrored these losses, with traders in BTC-linked products losing $238 million, with Solana (SOL) and DOGE-related trades losing a combined $50 million. Altcoin-linked products saw $138 million in losses, while ether-related futures lost $84 million.
The largest liquidation occurred on HTX, a tether-margined BTC trade valued at $98.4 million.
Liquidations happen when traders lack enough funds to maintain their leveraged positions. The crypto market’s high volatility often leads to these events, especially during market-moving occasions like Monday’s drop, which could provide insight into future sentiment or positioning.
Liquidations often indicate an overstretched market, suggesting that a price correction is underway. Areas with high liquidation volumes on price charts may act as support or resistance zones where prices could reverse due to the lack of further selling pressure.
If the market continues to decline, short-sellers may see this as validation, increasing their positions. However, contrarian traders might view the heavy liquidation as an opportunity to buy, anticipating a price rebound as the sell-off momentum weakens.
