Crypto Liquidations Near $1.8 Billion in a Day as ETFs Bleed $519 Million

Roughly $1.8 billion of leveraged crypto positions were wiped out in 24 hours on Tuesday, the heaviest single day of forced selling since the market turned lower in mid-May. More than 272,000 traders were liquidated. US spot bitcoin ETFs lost a net $519.2 million on Monday, following $483.8 million the session before, according to flow data compiled by TFTC. It was the second heavy day in a row on both counts, and the first sign that the selling was no longer confined to derivatives desks.

Where the losses landed

Bitcoin positions accounted for about $833 million of the total, ether for $480 million and solana for $90 million, a Bitcoin Foundation tally published Tuesday showed. The single largest order was a $59.67 million BTC/USDT position on HTX. The same report put longs at $1.57 billion against $215.7 million of shorts. That split appeared in one outlet only and could not be matched elsewhere by the time of writing, so it should be read as an estimate. The headline figure is not in dispute.

The scale is clearer against Monday. Liquidations that day were $282 million, about 60% of them longs, a routine figure for a falling market. Tuesday's total was more than six times that. Ripple's monthly release of one billion XRP from escrow landed on the same Monday, as it does every month, and did nothing to the tape either way.

The imbalance is the story. A cascade of this shape means traders were positioned for a rebound that did not come. Each forced sale pushes the price into the next cluster of stop levels. That is how a $1.8 billion day happens without a single piece of news to pin it on.

ETFs turn from buyer to seller

The spot ETF outflow matters more than its size suggests. Through most of 2025 and into the spring the funds absorbed supply on weak days. Two consecutive sessions above $480 million of redemptions is a change of behaviour, not a blip. The funds had not posted a net inflow in twelve sessions. Whatever the derivatives market does next, the cash buyers who defined the last cycle are, for now, on the other side of the tape.

Strategy sells, for the first time in years

The other item in the background is a filing Strategy made on Monday. The company sold 32 BTC for about $2.5 million in late May, its first disclosed sale since 2022. The amount is trivial next to a treasury measured in the hundreds of thousands of coins. The signal is not. A holder that had only ever bought, through every drawdown of the past four years, has now sold into weakness, however small the lot. The filing gave no reason for the sale.

Not everything fell. Stellar's XLM had jumped more than 40% on Monday on its DTCC tokenization integration, and Hyperliquid's HYPE token printed a record $73.94 the same day. Both moves were the exception. Neither was large enough to offset the flows out of bitcoin and ether.

What the next sessions decide

Two numbers will show whether this was a flush or the start of something longer. The first is the ETF tape: a third straight session near half a billion dollars would extend a streak that already runs to twelve sessions. The second is open interest. If leverage rebuilds into the same levels, the cascade can repeat. If it does not, the market has at least stopped paying to be wrong.