Opinion: Bitcoin fell 10%, not because Saylor sold 32 BTC

Original Title: Opinion: Bitcoin's 10% Drop Isn't Because Saylor Sold 32 BTC

Original Author: BlockBeats

Original Source:

Reprinted from: Mars Finance

TL;DR · Bitcoin fell to around $65,500 in early June over two days, with the crypto market cap evaporating roughly $200 billion at one point. · Strategy sold 32 BTC for about $2.5 million, a volume too small to explain the crash based on major exchange trading volumes. · A combination of persistent ETF outflows, Mt. Gox transfers, and leveraged long liquidations suppressed the rebound, with capital diversion still pressuring.

In early June, Bitcoin briefly dropped below $66,000, retracing about 10% in two days. The market quickly pointed fingers at Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, citing the company's sale of 32 bitcoins in late May. However, in terms of scale, this roughly $2.5 million sale is more like noise, hardly explaining the crypto market's evaporation of about $200 billion. The real drivers of the price decline were persistent redemptions from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, selling pressure expectations from large Mt. Gox transfers, and the chain reaction of concentrated liquidations of highly leveraged long positions. During the same period, AI financing and large tech assets continued to attract risk capital, leaving crypto assets facing a more concentrated reduction in positions.

32 BTC Won't Cause a Global Sell-Off

The most easily spread narrative around this decline is "Saylor sells coins, market crashes." But trading volumes don't support this causal chain.

According to reports from The Block and Coindesk, Strategy sold 32 BTC between May 26 and 31, 2026, amounting to about $2.5 million at an average price of roughly $77,135. For a company long known for its high-profile Bitcoin holdings, this move carries symbolic meaning, but from a market liquidity perspective, the scale is minuscule.

The average daily spot trading volume of Bitcoin on major exchanges is typically in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Roughly calculated at the time's price, 32 BTC sold over five trading days accounts for a tiny fraction of daily spot volume—akin to a larger investor reducing their position, not a sell order capable of altering the global Bitcoin price.

The price fluctuation itself was much larger. In early June, Bitcoin first fell about $4,500 in a single day, then continued to decline during Asian and European trading hours, hitting near $65,500, its lowest since late March. Ethereum also briefly dropped below $1,900, and Strategy's related stocks came under pressure simultaneously.

Attributing the decline to 32 BTC is more like the market finding an easy-to-understand label after the fact. The real question is why more capital chose 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 side.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a rare streak of consecutive net outflows at that time. Data metrics varied slightly, but multiple media statistics showed that by early June, the outflow cycle had stretched to about 13 trading days, with cumulative net outflows of roughly $4.4 billion, and related ETF asset sizes had notably retreated from previous highs. Ethereum-related products also saw consecutive outflows, indicating that capital was not just exiting a single product but reducing overall crypto exposure.

The second trigger was Mt. Gox.

According to Coindesk, at 04:47 UTC on June 2, the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate transferred 10,422.65 bitcoins, worth approximately $739 million. 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 entering a known Mt. Gox hot wallet. This was the estate's largest transfer in about six and a half months.

These coins did not directly enter exchanges, so they cannot be equated to sales. A safer interpretation is that wallet reorganization or distribution preparations are underway. However, traders typically do not wait for actual selling to adjust positions. Mt. Gox still holds about 34,504 BTC, worth around $2.43 billion, with a distribution deadline extended to October 31, 2026. Any large transfer amplifies potential selling pressure concerns in advance.

When sustained ETF redemptions meet Mt. Gox transfers, the buying support for Bitcoin spot weakens, and the market's sensitivity to future supply rises rapidly.

AI Funding Wave Intensifies Capital Diversion Pressure

This decline also occurred against another backdrop: AI and large tech companies are absorbing substantial venture capital.

Alphabet filed an SEC filing on June 1, planning an $80 billion equity financing package, including $30 billion in underwritten offerings, $40 billion in ATM offerings, and a $10 billion private placement to Berkshire Hathaway. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley participated as underwriters. Berkshire's existing Alphabet stake was worth about $20 billion, set to rise to around $30 billion after the transaction.

SpaceX also pushed forward with a large IPO in June. According to Axios, SpaceX priced its offering on June 11, raising $75 billion at a valuation of about $1.77 trillion. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have long been under expectations of large-scale financing and public listings.

These capital flows cannot be simply written off as direct causes of Bitcoin's decline, but they constitute competition within risk assets. Some institutions project that large tech companies' AI capital expenditures in 2026 could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. In this environment, incremental capital flows preferentially toward AI, semiconductors, and large-cap tech stocks, meaning crypto assets such as Bitcoin proxy assets, ETH, and SOL face higher capital diversion pressure.

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

Leveraged Longs Amplified the Decline into a Stampede

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

According to Coindesk, citing CoinGlass data for the same period, the total crypto market liquidation across 24 hours was about $1.84 billion, with long liquidations accounting for approximately $1.66 billion and short liquidations around $180 million. About 277k traders were liquidated in a single day. Bitcoin long liquidations alone approached $900 million, combined with the previous day's liquidation scale to form the largest deleveraging round since February.

The mechanism is not complex. Spot prices are first pushed lower by capital-side pressure, and the decline triggers insufficient margin for high-leverage longs in the perpetual contract market. Exchanges automatically close positions, which creates new selling pressure. As prices continue to fall, the next layer of long positions is forced to liquidate, and the stampede amplifies.

This is why the sale of 32 BTC is insufficient to explain the crash, but when combined with ETF redemptions, Mt. Gox transfers, and leveraged liquidations, it is enough to amplify a decline into a short-term sharp drop. Spot pressure provides the direction, while derivative positions provide the speed.

Technical Signals Are Approaching the Late Stage of the Decline, but Selling Pressure May Not Be Over

The sharp drop in early June does not mean Bitcoin has entered a new deep bear market, nor does it indicate an immediate bottom.

From a price perspective, Bitcoin briefly approached the March candlestick closing low of around $65,771. If the price subsequently breaks below this area but the weekly RSI does not simultaneously break below the March low, the market could form a bullish divergence with "price making new lows, momentum not making new lows." A similar structure appeared in the bottom area after the 2022 FTX crisis.

The cycle perspective also offers a reference. Major lows in previous cycles roughly occurred in the range of 700 to 900 days after the halving. Currently, about 770 days from the April 2024 halving, the market has entered a time window where signals of the late adjustment phase have historically appeared.

But these only indicate that the decline has entered a more sensitive zone, not that a reversal is imminent. Cycle lows are often a process, not a single candlestick. Even if the price finds support around $65,000, it may still experience sideways movement, repeated tests of support, and churn.

The most notable aspect of this crash is not that Saylor sold 32 bitcoins, but that the crypto market triggered a concentrated deleveraging under the combined effects of capital diversion, ETF redemptions, potential selling pressure, and high-leverage positions. As long as capital still flows preferentially to AI and large-cap tech assets, even if the crypto market sees a technical rebound, it will take longer to prove that selling pressure has been absorbed.