On Thursday, Bitcoin posted one of its biggest daily down candles ever, falling more than 15% to around $10,800, in a move that reverberated across derivatives, spot markets and the U.S. Bitcoin ETF intricate.
What made it stand out was the scale of the fall. Not just a percentage decline, but also a combination of stress signals hitting at once: an implied spike in volatility, an explosion in volumes, and a decline in momentum metrics to levels typically associated with forced selling rather than discretionary risk reduction.
Bitcoin crash triggers surrender signals
Jamie Coutts of Real Vision framed session as a “capitulation observation”, pointing to a group of indicators rarely seen together. He highlighted Bitcoin’s implied volatility via BVIV at 88.55, “approaching the FTX breakdown high of 105,” and noted that Coinbase had its eighth-biggest trading day ever in USD terms, with $3.34 billion changing hands – approximately 54,000 BTC at ~$62,000.
Coutts also highlighted how extreme the resetting momentum looked on the daily charts, citing a daily RSI of 15.64, “on par with the March 2020 lows related to the Covid-19 pandemic.” He added: “Margin calls are firing. Forced liquidations are likely still operating in the system. This has the hallmarks of a capitulation event, but capitulation may be a process rather than a single candle (unless we get a huge wick!). These conditions may persist for weeks or even months before a persistent low is formed.”
Macro trader Alex Krüger stopped just brief of hitting the low price target, but argued that the market captures the kinds of positioning and price distortions that tend to cluster around turning points over time.
“Friends, I really don’t know where the bottom is for Bitcoin, but I can recognize extreme conditions that can only be seen near the bottom at some point, such as extreme negative funding, options swinging to levels only seen once before since 2022 (FTX day), and volumes and liquidations at extraordinary levels,” he wrote. “You also have some monster shorts that opened in the 64k to 60k range, short squeeze material, sending the price to 68k, and if we see that, everyone will start talking about the bottom.”
Krüger’s caveat was equally direct: “In the meantime, of course, stocks have to hold on. And hitting the bottom doesn’t mean there will be a major trend from then on.”
Galaxy’s Alex Thorn described the tape as historically stretched on RSI measures, saying bitcoin was “the most oversold today than at any time since the 3AC blowout in June 2022 (30d RSI)” and calling it “basically one of the top three oversold events in history” alongside November 2018 and June 2022.
The US Bitcoin ETF spot market did not soften this move, but it did enhance today’s activity. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas said BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) “just broke its $10 billion daily stock trading volume record” as the fund’s price fell 13%, its second-worst daily decline since launch.
Anchorage Digital research director David Lawant added that IBIT alone’s trading volume of more than $10 billion was the highest since launch, beating previous records by 69% in equities and 27% in USD volume.
Positioning data pointed to a intricate, two-sided ETF ecosystem. K33 Research head of research Vetle Lunde noted that net brief equivalent exposure in BTC brief ETFs is approaching its November 2022 high of 7,745 BTC, while double-leveraged long BTC ETFs – products that did not exist then – are currently holding 39,590 BTC “at levels not seen since March 24.”
Volatility remained constant. ProCap CIO Jeff Park said: “Bitcoin’s implied volume is currently at 75%. This is the highest level since the ETF launched in 2024. It is also finally higher than gold’s volatility. Know that this is a lot of pain right now, but it is all part of the process required for Bitcoin to reach new highs. The meltdown will be rapid.”
At press time, BTC had rebounded from $60,000 to around $64,900, an boost of around 9% from the session low.
