I. The Federal Reserve's hawkish expectations suppress the market.
Expectations of a rate cut before the FOMC meeting fell through.
The Federal Reserve announced its interest rate decision on June 18, keeping rates unchanged and lowering the expectation for a rate cut in 2025 (from a 50 basis point reduction to 25 basis points), leading to a surge in risk-off sentiment for risk assets. Institutional investors accelerated their withdrawal from the cryptocurrency market due to macro uncertainty.
U.S. Treasury yields soar.
On the eve of the meeting, the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond broke 4.5%, reaching a new high for the year, diminishing the attractiveness of non-yielding assets like Bitcoin, with some funds shifting to the bond market.
II. Geopolitical black swan events.
Trump calls for the evacuation of the Iranian capital.
Directly expresses attitude.
On June 17, Trump urged all Americans to evacuate Tehran immediately, causing panic in the market over the escalation of the Middle East situation. Bitcoin fell below $104,000, with a 24-hour decline of over 5%, and Ethereum concurrently dropped to $2,470.
The probability of U.S. military action surges.
Polymarket prediction markets show that the probability of U.S. military action against Iran before July has risen to 66.7%, leading to a 6.2% daily shrinkage in total cryptocurrency market value, with altcoins suffering even more (e.g., RESOLV down 17.86%).
III. Large-scale token unlocking and sell pressure.
Project teams are concentrating on releasing tokens.
Between June 16 and 22, projects including FTN, ZRO, and ZK unlocked tokens worth over $230 million, causing a surge in circulation that triggered a wave of selling by investors.
Institutional cashing out and on-chain anomalies.
BlackRock's ETH spot ETF continues to see net inflows, but on-chain monitoring detected a whale address selling 81,000 ETH in a single day, intensifying market sell pressure.
IV. Technical breakdown and leveraged liquidations.
Bitcoin key support lost.
Bitcoin fell below the important support level of $106,000 (which had provided rebounds multiple times before), triggering algorithmic trading programs to automatically sell, with over $1.5 billion liquidated within 24 hours, and long positions accounting for 88%.
Altcoin liquidity crisis.
The decline of mainstream coins has led to the depletion of liquidity in the altcoin market, with some tokens (such as PEPE) falling more than 8% in 24 hours. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi evaporated by 7.3% in a single day.
V. The risk of regulation and policy is fermenting.
U.S. Stablecoin Bill Voting.
On June 17, the Senate held the final vote on the GENIUS Act, which aims to strengthen reserve audit requirements for stablecoin issuers, raising market concerns about tightening regulation.
Exchange withdrawal restrictions upgraded.
South Korea's Bithumb announced a delay in withdrawal policy (the first withdrawal requires a 72-hour wait), leading to panic selling among some investors.
Summary:
Multiple factors resonated to trigger a systemic decline.
The decline is a combined result of macro policy suppression, geopolitical conflicts, token sell pressure, and technical breakdowns.
Short-term attention should be paid to two major risk points:
Mt. Gox repayment progress (potential sell pressure of 140,000 BTC).
The Federal Reserve's balance sheet reduction pace (if the expectation of a rate cut in September further weakens, the market may revisit the $100,000 mark).
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