Bitcoin fell to its lowest price since late February on Thursday, piercing $62,000 intraday as a 13-session exodus from U.S. spot exchange-traded funds surpassed $4 billion — yet the same brutal sell-off has now triggered a pair of indicators that have historically preceded every major bear-market bottom in the asset’s history. For investors who have been waiting for a signal on where this cycle ends, the data now points to the low $60,000s as the zone that decides what comes next.
The sell-off wiped out more than $1.8 billion in leveraged positions in a single session on Thursday, the largest single-day liquidation event since January 2026, according to on-chain data.
Strategy’s Small Sale Dealt a Symbolic Blow
The cascade that eventually dragged bitcoin below $63,000 traces its origin to a three-page regulatory filing dated June 1. Strategy — the digital-asset treasury company formerly known as MicroStrategy — disclosed in an 8-K submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had sold 32 bitcoin between May 26 and May 31 at an average price of $77,135 per coin, collecting approximately $2.5 million in proceeds. The company used the funds to cover distributions on STRC, its perpetual preferred stock.
The arithmetic is almost comically small: 32 coins against a treasury of more than 843,700 bitcoin — roughly 0.004 percent of total holdings. But Strategy’s founder Michael Saylor had spent years publicly insisting he would never sell a single coin, framing the policy as proof of absolute conviction in bitcoin as a long-duration store of value. Even with Saylor having telegraphed the possibility of a small sale during the company’s first-quarter earnings call to “inoculate the market,” the confirmation hit sentiment hard. Shares of Strategy fell approximately 6 percent on the day of the disclosure; bitcoin slid toward the $71,000 range.
“A broad sell-off in crypto, which started with Strategy’s transfer triggering ETF outflows and is now fueled by speculative news about Mt. Gox liquidations, signals a potential continued sell-off,” said Paul Howard, senior director at liquidity provider Wincent, in an emailed note. “Whilst there is a long way to go, the absence of catalysts and the movement of liquidity into other tech sectors such as AI indicate we have further volatility ahead.”
Record ETF Outflows Strip $4 Billion From Bitcoin Demand
The institutional channel that powered much of bitcoin’s 2024–2025 rally has been running in reverse for nearly three weeks. U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows on every single trading session from May 14 through June 4 — 13 consecutive days, the longest unbroken outflow streak in the roughly two-and-a-half years since the products launched in January 2024. Total withdrawals across the streak exceeded $4 billion, according to data from SoSoValue.
The week ending May 29 alone produced $1.42 billion in net redemptions — the third-worst weekly total in the products’ history — while Monday June 2 saw $483.8 million leave in a single session. On Wednesday, another $50 million exited, extending the streak to day 13.
The duration and scale of the outflows matter for a structural reason: when ETF providers receive redemption requests, they must sell the underlying bitcoin to fund them, injecting supply directly into the spot market. The sustained withdrawal therefore represents not just a loss of future buying pressure but a persistent stream of active selling — one that stripped away the institutional cushion that had helped absorb volatility throughout 2025.
The 30-day implied volatility index BVIV climbed to 53.17 this week, its highest reading since early April, as traders moved to buy protective options against further downside. Ethereum ETFs have also bled, losing more than $712 million over the same three-week stretch.
Mt. Gox Added Another Layer of Fear
Compounding the ETF pressure was a fresh wave of anxiety around the long-running Mt. Gox creditor repayment process. On June 2, on-chain trackers identified that wallets linked to the bankrupt exchange’s estate had moved approximately 10,422 bitcoin — worth around $739 million at the time — to new addresses. On June 4, a further 116 bitcoin were transferred directly to the Bitstamp exchange, a routing that analysts said brought the coins closer to potential liquid supply.
The Mt. Gox estate currently holds approximately 34,500 bitcoin and faces a hard deadline of October 31, 2026 to complete all outstanding creditor distributions. No sale has been confirmed, and on-chain analysts at CryptoQuant noted that the initial June 2 transfer did not immediately produce selling pressure. But in a market already running on fear, the prospect of even a fraction of that supply reaching exchanges was enough to keep sellers in control.
Capitulation and the 200-Week Moving Average: Two Signals Pointing to a Bottom
Amid the pain, two historically significant indicators converged on Thursday for the first time in this cycle — and both have a track record of marking bear-market lows rather than the beginning of further decline.
The first came from Compass Point analyst Ed Engel, who noted in a research note that 26 percent of all bitcoin sold over the past 30 days originated from investors who had purchased the token at prices above $90,000. This cohort — sometimes called “top buyers” — had remained largely inactive throughout the preceding months of decline, holding through losses that stretched to tens of thousands of dollars per coin.
“This cohort of top-buyers had been resilient throughout the bear market; however, they’re finally capitulating as BTC approaches new cycle lows,” Engel wrote. “This makes us more confident that BTC’s bear market is in late stages.”
In market cycle analysis, the capitulation of the last holdouts is treated as a constructive — if painful — signal. It suggests the sellers who were willing to wait longest have now exhausted their tolerance, reducing the available pool of future supply. Long-term holders — defined as those holding coins for at least 155 days — had sold approximately $2.4 billion in bitcoin in the days before the note, Engel said, which has “large implications on BTC’s supply/demand balances.”
The second indicator arrived intraday on Thursday, when bitcoin briefly touched approximately $61,300 — the level of the asset’s 200-week moving average. At the same moment, the amount of bitcoin supply held at a loss exceeded the amount held in profit for the first time in the current cycle, with 10.5 million coins underwater against 9.8 million in profit, according to Glassnode data.
The 200-week moving average has been tested at or near major cycle lows in every previous bitcoin bear market. The supply-in-loss crossover carries a similar historical pedigree: it appeared in the 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2022 bottoms. Neither indicator guarantees that prices cannot fall further, but the convergence of both — alongside the top-buyer capitulation data from Compass Point — represents the densest clustering of bottom-signal data this cycle has produced.
David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, offered a more cautious read of the same zone. “If there were to be a protracted and significant break below here, then that would increase the likelihood that the February low of $60,000 comes into play,” Morrison said. Some traders are watching the low $60,000 region as the decisive support area, and a handful have begun floating $50,000 as a possible floor if conditions deteriorate further.
Ethereum and the Broader Crypto Treasury Collapse
The sell-off has spread well beyond bitcoin. Ethereum fell below $1,800 on Thursday — a level that puts Bitmine, the largest corporate holder of ether with more than 5.4 million ETH on its balance sheet, in a deeply uncomfortable position. The Tom Lee-chaired company is now sitting on an estimated $8.9 billion in unrealized losses on its ether holdings, according to data from DropsTab, and its shares have fallen 28 percent since the start of May.
Bitmine’s predicament illustrates the structural risks embedded in the corporate crypto-treasury model — where companies raise equity capital to accumulate digital assets and depend on rising prices to sustain the strategy. Strategy itself, the company that originated the model, recently broke its own “never sell” pledge, however modestly. The model works brilliantly in a bull market and becomes deeply uncomfortable in a bear one.
Spot ETF products tracking ETH, SOL, and XRP recorded outflows across the same 13-session stretch, confirming that the institutional pullback was not bitcoin-specific.
What the $61K Zone Means for Investors
The $61,000–$62,000 range is now carrying the weight of multiple technical and on-chain support levels simultaneously: the 200-week moving average, the local cycle low of approximately $59,900 established in February 2026, and the realized price of the network (the aggregate cost basis of all circulating coins, estimated near $54,000) — all converging within a relatively narrow band. Whether that band holds under sustained selling pressure, or gives way to further liquidation, is the question the market has to answer.
Scott Melker, host of The Wolf of All Streets, noted that the weekly Relative Strength Index had reached oversold levels comparable to those seen at the 2015, 2018, and 2022 cycle lows — though he was careful not to predict an exact bottom. “Bottoms are processes, not events,” he said. “What it does suggest is that Bitcoin has entered the same momentum regime that has historically been present whenever a major cycle low was forming.”
For investors tracking the practical decision, three inputs now demand attention: the capitulation of long-term, high-conviction holders is a constructive signal; the historical significance of the 200-week moving average being tested at $61,300 adds to that case; and the persistence of Mt. Gox supply overhang through October 2026 and the absence of any identifiable macro catalyst to reverse ETF flows are cautionary counterweights. How those inputs are weighted is a decision only the individual investor can make — but the data is, for the first time in this cycle, pointing toward something resembling a floor.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is bitcoin in a bear market in 2026?
Yes. Bitcoin peaked at approximately $128,198 in October 2025 and has since fallen more than 50 percent from that high, meeting the standard definition of a bear market. As of June 4, 2026, the asset is trading near $62,000, extending a slide that has wiped roughly 21 percent of its value over the prior four weeks alone.
Why are bitcoin ETFs seeing record outflows?
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have now recorded 13 consecutive trading days of net withdrawals — a record since their January 2024 launch — with total outflows exceeding $4 billion across the streak. Analysts attribute the sustained institutional exit to a combination of profit-taking after the 2025 bull run, macro headwinds including Federal Reserve rate expectations, Strategy’s symbolic bitcoin sale breaking the “never sell” narrative, and fears of supply pressure from Mt. Gox creditor repayments.
What is the bitcoin 200-week moving average and why does it matter?
The 200-week moving average is a long-term technical indicator that tracks bitcoin’s average price across the most recent 200 weekly sessions. It has been tested near the low point of every major bitcoin bear market — 2015, 2018, and 2022 — and has historically acted as a floor before subsequent recoveries. As of June 4, 2026, the 200-week moving average sits at approximately $61,300, and bitcoin briefly touched that level on Thursday.
Could bitcoin fall to $50,000 in 2026?
Some analysts consider it possible. Paul Howard of liquidity provider Wincent noted in a June 4 email that $50,000 is “a level some are starting to talk about as a bottom this year” if selling pressure continues and no fresh bullish catalyst emerges. However, Compass Point analyst Ed Engel argues that the current capitulation pattern — with the last holdouts from the 2025 peak now selling — is more consistent with a bear market nearing its end than one accelerating further.