Bitcoin slipped below $77,000 on Monday morning, extending a sell-off that has now wiped out more than $672 million in leveraged crypto positions across major exchanges. The drop came as a broad bond sell-off rippled through global markets, with traders rushing to unwind risk assets.
Bond-market spillover
The catalyst wasn't crypto-specific. U.S. Treasury yields jumped overnight after a stronger-than-expected retail sales print, and that repricing hit everything from equities to digital assets. For crypto, the damage was concentrated in long positions: roughly 85% of the $672 million in liquidations came from traders betting on higher prices, according to data shared by several tracking platforms.
Liquidations mount
Bitcoin alone accounted for about $220 million of the total, with Ethereum trailing behind at $180 million. The shakeout took just a few hours — the bulk of liquidations hit between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. UTC. A handful of exchanges saw their funding rates flip negative as the move accelerated, a sign that the market had become top-heavy.
Geopolitics fades, ETF flows take over
Some market analysts have noted that the pattern of this sell-off reinforces a shift that's been building for months: geopolitical shocks — a missile test, a tariff threat, a diplomatic breakdown — no longer move crypto prices directly. Instead, the transmission now runs through institutional channels. When a bond sell-off triggers ETF outflows, that's when bitcoin moves. Monday's action fits that framework: no single geopolitical headline drove the drop, just a repricing of fixed income that pushed ETF redemptions higher.
The question now is whether the selling has further to run. With the 10-year yield hovering near multi-month highs and ETF outflow data due later this week, traders are watching for signs that the liquidations could cascade into a broader deleveraging.
