Bitcoin Drops Below $70,000 for the First Time Since April
Bitcoin falls below $70,000, and the mood across the cryptocurrency market has turned decidedly grim. The world’s largest digital asset shed more than 4% on Tuesday, June 2, sliding to its lowest level since April 8 as a perfect storm of negative signals piled on at once.
The sharpest catalyst came from Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, which disclosed in an SEC filing that it had sold approximately $2.5 million worth of Bitcoin, its first such sale since 2022. While that amount is barely a rounding error against the company’s roughly $59 billion Bitcoin war chest, the optics hit hard. Strategy had long been crypto’s loudest institutional champion, building its identity around an aggressive accumulate-and-hold approach. Any reversal, however minor, sent a signal the market was not prepared to ignore.
That came on top of an already fragile backdrop. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have suffered outflows for an unprecedented 11 consecutive days, approaching $3.5 billion over that stretch, according to Bloomberg data, an extraordinary sustained exit from products that had been celebrated as a mainstream gateway into crypto.
The souring sentiment triggered nearly $1.5 billion in crypto liquidations over a 24-hour period, with leveraged long positions getting wiped out as prices cascaded lower. According to CoinGlass data, the liquidations on June 2 were the largest recorded so far in 2026, wiping out $1.35 billion in crypto long positions. Ether fell around 4.7%, and crypto-adjacent stocks took a beating, Strategy dropped 9%, Galaxy shed 5.9%, and Coinbase lost 4.7%.
What makes this moment particularly striking is what was happening everywhere else. Despite gains in major U.S. stock indexes driven by enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence companies, Bitcoin continued to move lower. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both hit back-to-back record highs on the same day Bitcoin was cracking key support levels.
Nic Puckrin, macro analyst and co-founder of Coin Bureau, put it plainly in a note on Tuesday: “What’s particularly surprising is that Bitcoin is falling even as the US stock market, driven by exuberance around AI, is continuing to hit new highs. This means Bitcoin is being driven more by crypto-specific sentiment, and this is close to rock bottom right now.”
Bitcoin’s recent weakness also follows a difficult stretch earlier in 2026, when the asset dropped more than 12% during a steep February selloff that triggered large-scale liquidations and significant ETF outflows. The current episode, analysts note, bears similar characteristics, deteriorating internal sentiment disconnected from broader macro conditions.
Whether this represents a deeper structural shift or a shakeout before recovery remains the key question. For now, with Bitcoin falls below $70,000 confirmed and the liquidation data pointing to considerable forced selling still working its way through the system, the path of least resistance appears lower, at least until sentiment finds a floor.
