In early June, Bitcoin once fell below $66,000, retreating about 10% in two days. The market quickly pointed the finger at Strategy, helmed by Michael Saylor, citing the company's sale of 32 bitcoins in late May. However, in terms of scale, this sale of approximately $2.5 million looks more like noise, hardly explaining the evaporation of about $200 billion in crypto market capitalization. What truly drove prices down was a combination of consecutive redemptions in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, sell-off expectations triggered by large Mt.Gox transfers, and the chain reaction from the concentrated liquidation of highly leveraged long positions. During the same period, AI financing and large tech assets continued to attract risk capital, meaning crypto assets faced a more concentrated wave of deleveraging pressure.

32 BTC Cannot Support a Global Sell-Off

Regarding this drop, the most easily spread narrative is 'Saylor sold, the market crashed.' But trading volume does not support this causal chain.

According to reports from The Block and Coindesk, Strategy sold 32 BTC between May 26 and 31, 2026, amounting to approximately $2.5 million at an average price of about $77,135. For a company that has long been a high-profile holder of Bitcoin, this move has symbolic significance, but from a market liquidity perspective, the scale is small.

Daily spot trading volume for Bitcoin on major exchanges typically amounts to tens of billions of dollars. Roughly calculated at the prices then, selling 32 BTC spread over five trading days constituted a minuscule fraction of single-day spot volume, akin to a relatively large investor reducing position size, not a sell-off sufficient to alter Bitcoin's global price.

The price volatility itself was much larger. In early June, Bitcoin first dropped about $4,500 in a single day, then continued lower during Asian and European trading hours, touching around $65,500 intraday, hitting lows not seen since late March. Ethereum also briefly fell below $1,900, and Strategy-related stocks came under pressure simultaneously.

Attributing the decline to 32 BTC is more like the market searching for an easily understandable label after the fact. The real question is, why did more capital choose to leave crypto assets at the same time.

ETF Redemptions and Mt.Gox Transfers Lowered Expectations First

The first layer of pressure in early June came from the spot capital flow side.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs at the time experienced a rare streak of consecutive net outflows. Different data sources showed slight variations, but statistics from multiple media outlets indicated that as of early June, the outflow period had stretched to about 13 trading days, with cumulative net outflows of approximately $4.4 billion. The asset scale of related ETFs also noticeably receded from previous highs. Ethereum-related products also saw consecutive outflows, indicating funds were not just leaving a single product but reducing overall exposure to crypto assets.

The second trigger was Mt.Gox.

According to a Coindesk report, at 04:47 UTC on June 2, the Mt.Gox bankruptcy estate transferred 10,422.65 Bitcoin, worth about $739 million. The on-chain data platform Arkham Intelligence flagged this transfer, with about 10,306 BTC going to a previously unseen wallet address, and another 116 BTC going to a known Mt.Gox hot wallet. This was the estate's largest transfer in about six and a half months.

These coins were not sent directly to an exchange and cannot be equated with a sale. A more prudent understanding is that wallet consolidation or distribution preparation is progressing. However, traders typically do not wait for actual selling to occur before adjusting their positions. Mt.Gox still holds about 34,504 BTC, worth approximately $2.43 billion, with the distribution deadline extended to October 31, 2026. Any large transfer will amplify concerns about potential selling pressure in advance.

When continuous ETF redemptions met Mt.Gox transfers, the buying pressure in the Bitcoin spot market was weakened, and the market's sensitivity to subsequent supply quickly increased.

AI Financing Wave Intensifies Capital Diversion Pressure

This drop also occurred against another backdrop: AI and large tech companies are absorbing vast amounts of risk capital.

Alphabet filed an SEC document on June 1, planning an equity financing round of approximately $80 billion, including a $30 billion underwritten offering, a $40 billion at-the-market (ATM) offering, and a $10 billion private placement to Berkshire Hathaway. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley participated in the underwriting. Berkshire's originally held Alphabet shares were worth about $20 billion, and post-transaction would rise to about $30 billion.

SpaceX also advanced a large IPO in June. According to an Axios report, SpaceX completed pricing on June 11, raising $75 billion at a valuation of approximately $1.77 trillion. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have also long been in a state of large-scale financing and IPO expectations.

These capital flows cannot be simply written as a direct cause of Bitcoin's decline, but they constitute competition within risk assets. Some institutions estimate that large tech companies' AI capital expenditures in 2026 could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. In this environment, incremental funds are prioritized towards AI, semiconductors, and large-cap tech stocks, meaning proxy assets for Bitcoin, ETH, SOL, and other crypto assets face higher pressure from capital diversion.

This also explains the market divergence at the time: traditional risk assets and the AI chain still had buying interest, while crypto assets were sold to reduce positions. The market was not comprehensively risk-off, but rather reordering different risk assets.

Leveraged Longs Amplified the Drop into a Stampede

If there were only capital outflows and selling pressure expectations, Bitcoin might have just experienced a continuous, gradual decline. The key to the approximately 10% drop in two days in early June was the concentrated triggering of leveraged positions.

According to Coindesk citing CoinGlass data from the same period, the total liquidation volume across the crypto market within 24 hours was approximately $1.84 billion, with long liquidations around $1.66 billion and short liquidations about $180 million. About 277,000 traders were liquidated in a single day. Bitcoin long liquidations alone neared $900 million, combining with the previous day's liquidation volume to form the largest deleveraging wave since February.

The mechanism is not complicated. The spot price was first pushed lower by capital flow pressure. The drop triggered insufficient margin for highly leveraged long positions in the perpetual swap markets. Exchanges automatically liquidated positions, and the liquidations created new selling pressure. As the price continued to fall, the next layer of long positions was forced into liquidation, and the stampede expanded.

This is also why the sale of 32 BTC is insufficient to explain the crash, but when ETF redemptions, Mt.Gox transfer concerns, and leverage liquidations compound, they can amplify a decline into a sharp short-term drop. Spot pressure provides the direction, and derivative positions provide the speed.

Technical Signals Begin Approaching Latter Stages of Decline, But Selling Pressure May Not Be Over

The sharp drop in early June does not equate to Bitcoin entering a new deep bear market, nor does it mean a bottom is imminent.

From a price perspective, Bitcoin once approached the vicinity of the March candlestick closing low around $65,771. If subsequent prices break below this area, but the weekly RSI does not fall below the March low, the market could form a bullish divergence characterized by 'price making a new low, momentum not making a new low.' A similar structure appeared in the bottoming area after the FTX crisis in 2022.

The cyclical angle also provides a reference. Major lows in previous cycles roughly appeared in the interval of 700 to over 900 days after the halving. Currently, it's about 770 days since the April 2024 halving, already entering the historical time window where signals for the latter stages of a correction tend to appear.

However, this only indicates the decline is entering a more sensitive price zone; it does not directly imply a reversal. Cyclical lows are often a process, not a single candlestick. Even if prices find support around $65,000, it may still be accompanied by sideways movement, repeated tests, and churn in holdings.

The most noteworthy aspect of this crash is not that Saylor sold 32 bitcoins, but that the crypto market triggered concentrated deleveraging under the combined effect of capital diversion, ETF redemptions, potential selling pressure, and high leverage. As long as capital continues to flow preferentially towards AI and large tech assets, even if the crypto market experiences a technical rebound, it will need more time to prove that selling pressure has been digested.