This morning, although I thought I was mentally prepared for the market to continue declining, I did not expect the new round of accelerated decline to come so quickly.
Around 15:30, BTC broke below the 90,000 USDT mark again after nearly a month and a half. Binance market shows:
· BTC briefly fell to 88189 USDT, as of 15:50 currently reported at 89204 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 6.80;
· ETH briefly fell to 2315 USDT, currently reported at 2378.01 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 12.5%;
· SOL briefly fell to 132.8 USDT, currently reported at 136.5 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 15.12%;
· Other altcoins and on-chain memes do not need to be mentioned much, with a general decline of over 10% or even 20%.
In terms of derivatives data, Coinglass data shows that in the past 24 hours, a total of 1.337 billion US dollars were liquidated across the network, most of which were long liquidations amounting to 1.25 billion US dollars. In terms of cryptocurrencies, among them, BTC liquidated 517 million US dollars, and ETH liquidated 294 million US dollars.
Targeting large holders with precision?
Regarding the reasons for this sharp decline, some community members interpret it as a strong player targeting a specific large holder of BTC contracts in CEX (nicknamed 'Set 10 Big Targets').
The community screenshot shows that this user opened a position at an average price of 100320.8 USDT, with a holding amount of up to 5184.527 BTC, and the estimated liquidation price is 82592.68 USDT.
However, as the market accelerated its decline, this large holder seems to have exited early. On-chain analyst Ai Yi monitored and indicated that this large holder who opened long BTC contracts has cut losses, selling 1783.48 BTC at an average price of 89138 USDT in the past 5 minutes, totaling 159 million US dollars.
Meanwhile, the X user jasonleo, suspected to be the large holder himself, also responded about this position. Jasonleo admitted to 'admitting mistakes and exiting, giving back profits,' but clarified that he did not 'cut losses,' as the principal remains, because the actual market entry was late, and the on-chain data platform did not account for previous profits.
The large holder ultimately stated: 'From making 700 million to zero profit, just one shot away from the 1 billion target, what a pity.'
What do various prominent figures/institutions think?
In this morning's article, we briefly covered the views of BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and Placeholder partner Chris Burniske on the future market - Arthur Hayes remains bearish down to 70000 USDT; Chris Burniske firmly believes this is just a correction within a bull market.
To help everyone better assess the future market, we have summarized more views from prominent figures/institutions, details as follows.
OKX: Multiple factors triggered this round of decline, and the key to the market's future lies in the inflow of incremental capital.
OKX Research Institute senior researcher Zhao Wei analyzed this round of decline, stating that multiple factors including global trade tensions, the sharp decline of US stocks, leveraged liquidations, institutional capital withdrawal, frequent security incidents, and the retreat of speculation in the SOL ecosystem have jointly driven this round of market decline.
On a macro level, liquidity tightening continues to pressure risk assets. Expectations of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan have risen, with the yen breaking through the 149 mark against the dollar, directly impacting the largest carry trade vehicle globally. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq index has fallen over 4% for three consecutive days, tech stock valuations have declined, market risk appetite has decreased, further affecting high-risk assets like Bitcoin. In addition, the strengthening dollar has pushed up risk-free yields, attracting funds back to low-risk assets, accelerating the outflow of funds from high-risk assets.
In the crypto market, internal vulnerabilities have been amplified during this downturn. Firstly, the reversal of institutional capital flows has become a key pressure point. Recently, Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs have continued to see net outflows, and some institutions' cost lines have been breached, triggering programmatic selling. Secondly, in the derivatives market, large institutions have significantly reduced their Ethereum futures positions, indicating a shift in their market expectations. In addition, the SOL ecosystem is facing liquidity challenges, on-chain Memecoin trading volume has declined, and the exit of speculative funds has led market makers to reduce quote depth, resulting in a surge in on-chain liquidation and a decline in protocol income, potentially restructuring the valuation model of the SOL ecosystem. The wave of leveraged liquidations further exacerbates market turbulence, with some crypto asset prices breaking down, triggering DeFi cascading liquidations. Meanwhile, recent security incidents have intensified the market's trust crisis, with user concerns about asset security rising and further undermining confidence in the crypto market.
The future market trend will be jointly influenced by the macro environment and internal factors, but the core still depends on the sustained inflow of incremental capital. However, the current global economic situation is unclear, and tariff pressures are exacerbating the decline in risk appetite, while the recovery of the crypto market still needs to wait for the return of institutional capital and the promotion of new phenomenal applications to reconstruct the narrative for a healthy market adjustment. Currently, the crypto market is under the resonance of threefold pressures: macro liquidity contraction, internal ecological adjustments, and exposure of market structural vulnerabilities. Users should focus on the industry’s technological innovation cycle, the performance of US tech stock earnings, and the pace of adjustments in global central bank policies. Only when the inflow of on-chain stablecoins resumes positive growth, futures positions rebound from the bottom, and the major cryptocurrencies stabilize at the weekly level, can the market recovery cycle be confirmed.
Matrixport: The possibility of continued decline is high, with limited buying demand.
Matrixport issued a statement today regarding market fluctuations: 'Bitcoin has broken below the rising expanding wedge, although this is not what we hoped for, this pattern usually indicates downward risk unless the price can quickly rebound and return to within the wedge. The likelihood of Bitcoin further declining is high, especially since this breakdown occurred during a period of low trading activity, with limited demand for buying on dips.'
'Although we expect there will be upward space in prices in the second half of this year, this technical breakdown has made market sentiment more cautious. Furthermore, not only Bitcoin broke down, Ethereum also fell below the key support range of 2600 USDT to 2800 USDT.'
Raoul Pal: It’s just a pullback, learn to filter out the noise.
Sound
Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal commented on the decline: 'Be patient. The current market structure is very similar to 2017. BTC has experienced five pullbacks greater than 28%, which lasted 2-3 months before reaching new highs, while altcoins generally fell over 65%. The market is full of noise, focus on doing something more meaningful than just watching the charts.'
Ansem: Focus on the recovery situation around 96500, beware of subsequent stock market declines.
Famous trader Ansem stated on X that the key going forward is to see if BTC can recover around the 96500 level, but the more significant issue is if cryptocurrencies are preemptively reflecting the market's risk-averse trend, and if stock indices also collapse in the coming weeks, then this is more likely the beginning of a downtrend rather than just a minor episode in an uptrend.
CoinDesk analysis: Nasdaq decline + Japanese interest rate hike triggered a crash.
CoinDesk market analysis team editor Omkar Godbole released a market analysis indicating that expectations of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan and the decline in Nasdaq futures led to this round of crypto market crash. Market data shows that Nasdaq futures fell by 0.3%, indicating that the trend of continuous decline over three days will continue, with the tech stock index down over 4% since February 18.
The safe-haven currency yen against the dollar is at 149.38, poised to challenge Monday's nearly three-month high of 148.84. As the market bets on the Bank of Japan raising interest rates, the yen has risen nearly 6% in six weeks. The Bank of Japan's interest rate hike remarks and the strengthening yen remind one of last July: at that time, due to the central bank's rate hike, the yen surged, ultimately triggering widespread risk aversion, causing Bitcoin to plummet from about 65,000 US dollars to 50,000 US dollars in just a few days.