Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin fell below $61,000 on Tuesday as escalating Middle East tensions sparked a 2.9% daily price drop.
- The crypto market retreat triggered $467.5 million in total crypto liquidations, devastating long derivatives bets.
- Glassnode data shows a grim outlook with 8 million bitcoin now underwater, reversing recent profit trends.
Bitcoin Dips Amid Geopolitical Tremors
On Tuesday, bitcoin reversed gains made 24 hours earlier, dipping below the $61,000 threshold amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Bitstamp data showed the top cryptocurrency plunged to an intraday low of $60,718 before quickly reclaiming $61,000 and ultimately attempting to test the $62,000 mark.
However, at the time of writing at 2:30 p.m. EST, bitcoin was trading just below $61,700, translating to a daily loss of 2.9%. The retreat to near June 5 lows brought the top cryptocurrency’s weekly losses to 8.5% and more than 15% since the beginning of the month. Consequently, bitcoin saw its market capitalization slide from $1.27 trillion 24 hours earlier to approximately $1.24 trillion at the time of writing.
In the derivatives market, bitcoin’s price action triggered the liquidation of $104 million in long bets and nearly $27 million in short bets. This was a reversal from 24 hours earlier, when $240 million in shorts was liquidated versus $42.5 million in long bets. Overall, cryptocurrency market liquidations topped $467.5 million, with long bets accounting for $364.5 million of the total.
While on Monday, bitcoin largely shrugged off escalating tensions in the Middle East, which saw Israel and Iran briefly exchange fire, the story seemed different on June 9 as the cryptocurrency shed over $2,000 in a matter of hours. Later, U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media post promising a response to the downing of an Apache attack helicopter by Iranian forces coincided with bitcoin’s slip to its intraday low.
Signaling just how seriously the market took the administration’s warnings, a flurry of reports surfaced on X suggesting a coordinated panic in the skies. Multiple commercial airlines reportedly scrambled to evacuate their fleets from Tehran’s runways, racing to clear Iranian airspace amid mounting fears that a devastating U.S. military bombardment was imminent.
Meanwhile, bitcoin’s recent downturn has inflicted pain on spot market participants, wiping out short-term cost bases across the board. According to data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, the rapid market reset has left more than 8 million bitcoin “underwater”—meaning these coins were last moved or purchased at prices higher than the current spot value.
This sharp influx of unrealized losses marks a stark pivot from the cycle’s peak, a period defined by overwhelming investor profitability when nearly half of the entire circulating supply sat comfortably in the green.
