Bitcoin’s slide back below $60,000 is reviving a fear that has largely been absent from crypto for the past two years: what happens when the market’s biggest buyer comes under pressure just as retail traders lose interest.

The cryptocurrency fell through a closely watched support level on Wednesday as investors grappled with growing concerns about Michael Saylor’s financing machine at Strategy Inc. and a broader retreat by individual traders, many of whom have shifted their attention — and capital — to artificial intelligence stocks.

“The market is repricing the whole MSTR and STRC flywheel,” said Shiliang Tang, managing partner at Monarq Asset Management, referring to the ticker symbols for Strategy’s common and preferred shares.

Almost $800 million in crypto long positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, according to data compiled by CoinGlass. The drawdown comes before Friday’s quarterly expiration of around $10 billion in Bitcoin options, Deribit data show.  

Bitcoin fell as much as 5.4% to $59,023, the least since October 2024. It last breached $60,000 at the start of June. Strategy’s common shares declined for a sixth-consecutive trading session, reaching the lowest level since February 2024. The effective yield on the preferred climbed to about 14%.

Retail investors once stepped in aggressively during sharp selloffs, while Strategy emerged as a buyer of last resort, routinely issuing stock and preferred securities to fund more Bitcoin purchases. ETF buyers added another pillar of support, but many who entered when Bitcoin was trading far higher are now underwater, making them less likely to absorb fresh losses or add exposure.

That institutional case has also become harder to defend. Bitcoin failed to reliably hedge portfolios during recent bouts of Middle East stress and inflation anxiety, weakening the diversification argument that helped draw allocators into the asset class. Instead of behaving like portfolio insurance, it has often traded like another high-volatility risk asset.

“As the path of interest rates continues to shift further away from a potential cut, it is impacting the inflation hedge story of the asset,” said Stephane Ouellette, chief executive of FRNT Financial.  

At the same time, investors are increasingly focused on signs of strain inside Strategy’s financing model after a prolonged decline in Bitcoin left the company sitting on billions of dollars of unrealized losses and raised questions about its ability to continue funding purchases at the pace markets have come to expect.

The crypto market is now unusually sensitive to developments at Strategy. While the firm has resumed purchases after a recent sale that stoked market fears, concerns about its financing structure have intensified as its preferred securities come under pressure. The STRC instrument sank as low as $79.85 on Wednesday, extending a collapse that many investors view as a referendum on the durability of the company’s Bitcoin acquisition strategy. As confidence in those securities deteriorates, traders worry that Strategy’s ability to keep serving as crypto’s largest incremental buyer could become constrained.

The result is a Bitcoin market increasingly dependent on institutional capital at the very moment institutional conviction is being tested.

Bitcoin right now “feels like some sellers in a market where there are no buyers,” said Noelle Acheson, author of the “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter.   

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Published on June 25, 2026