Bitcoin bounced back strongly in Asia on Friday after a new wave of selling briefly pushed the token towards $60,000, extending a brutal slide that has now sent the world’s biggest cryptocurrency more than 50% below its October peak.
BTC fell as much as 4.8% to around $60,033 during the late US hours before falling back to as high as $65,926. The move followed Thursday’s 13% slide, bitcoin’s steepest one-day drop since November 2022, when the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX sparked market-wide panic.
The rejection came as liquidations picked up again, removing leveraged positions built up during the week’s decline.
About $700 million in crypto bets were wiped out in the last four hours, according to liquidation tracker CoinGlass, including about $530 million in long positions and $170 million in shorts. This mix suggests that traders were first crushed on the way down, then caught leaning the wrong way on the rebound.
The move also appears to have attracted spot buyers, with $60,000 serving as a psychological line that traders have been watching for weeks.
Damien Loh, chief investment officer at Ericsenz Capital, said the rebound points to “strong support” around that level, but warned that sentiment remains fragile given the broader market backdrop.
Altcoins mirrored bitcoin’s whipsaw. Solana fell as much as 14% at one point before erasing those losses entirely within hours, showing just how quickly risk appetite dwindles as liquidity thins and forced selling takes over.
The broader crypto market has been shaky since a series of liquidations in October rattled confidence, and the latest slump has been compounded by turbulence in global markets, where investors have dumped speculative assets.
Bitcoin’s weakness is now spreading into crypto-linked balance sheets. Strategy, the company led by Michael Saylor, on Thursday reported a net loss of $12.4 billion in the fourth quarter, driven by the mark-to-market decline in its bitcoin holdings.
Even with Friday’s bounce, traders say the market still looks like one being pushed around by leverage rather than conviction.
