Stacy Pereira
- Heavy selling from large holders and futures overleverage accelerated Bitcoin’s slide towards $109,000 levels on Thursday.
- Bitcoin has broken below its 50- and 100-day simple moving averages, a signal many chartists view as a bearish shift.
- Shares of crypto-linked firms like MircoStrategy tanked 10%, wiping out their 2025 gains.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price tumbled toward the $109,000 levels, down 3.8% and inching close to its key support after a sharp bout of selling on Thursday. The sell-off was triggered by institutional liquidations and technical breakdowns, with Bitcoin seeing its weakest price in nearly a month.
The decline can be largely attributed to the series of forced liquidations in futures markets and heavy selling pressure from large holders or whales. As Bitcoin dipped, multiple long positions were squeezed, adding fuel to the selloff and suppressing reactive buying.
More than $1.1 billion in leveraged derivatives positions were liquidated during the selloff, led by over $400 million in ETH long positions, according to CoinGlass.
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Technical indicators to watch
On the technical side, the largest cryptocurrency moved below moving averages, both its 50-DMA and 100-DMA, which turned those support lines into resistance zones and further weakened the bulls’ grip. Many chartists view this signal as a bearish shift. They also point to $109,884 as a near-term downside target. If that breaks, further slides toward $108,000 or possibly lower could follow.
On the fundamental side, broader macro and liquidity pressures like tightening monetary policy expectations and strong U.S. dollar strength have intensified the downtrend.
Michael Saylor’s MSTR cracks
Crypto-related stocks also declined, with Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (MSTR), the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, dropping up to 10% to its lowest level in five months. The stock, often viewed as a proxy for bitcoin exposure, has erased its 2025 gains and now sits 1.5% lower year-to-date, while BTC remains up 16% over the same stretch.
