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Bitcoin Quickly Plunges Below $103K, With Volatility Burst Spurring $450M in Crypto Liquidations
The sharp reversal from above $106,000 wiped out early optimism, with bulls and bears mostly continuing in a stalemate.
Jun 20, 2025, 6:55 p.m.
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What to know:
- A sudden tumble during U.S. trading hours wiped out bitcoin's earlier gain to above $106,000, while large cryptos like ETH, SOL, DOGE, and ADA saw even more sizable declines.
- The volatility burst led to $450 million in liquidations, mostly long positions, CoinGlass data shows.
- BTC is caught between in a "stalemate" between the bullish long-term outlook and short-term risk-off sentiment, Unity Wallet's James Toledano said.
What started as a positive day for crypto markets quickly reversed during the U.S. session with bitcoin sliding below $103,000 from the $106,500 level just hours earlier.
At press time, bitcoin had pared some of the losses, returning to $103,200, down 1.2% over the past 24 hours.
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Other large cryptocurrencies endured steeper declines. Ethereum's ether saw a sharp 4.5% drop in just 90 minutes to as low as $2,372, with trading volume spiking to nearly 800,000 ETH, nearly eight times the average hourly volume, per CoinDesk data. Solana's SOL , dogecoin and Cardano's ADA were 3%-5% lower over the same period.
The volatility burst caught many traders off-guard, liquidating about $450 million in derivatives trading positions on centralized exchanges across all digital assets, CoinGlass data shows. Some $387 million of liquidations were tied to long positions that bet on profiting from rising prices.
While macro risks abound — among them the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran — there was no immediate external reason for the sudden price swing. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 indexes only inched lower during the day.
Bitcoin at stalemate
Zooming out, BTC continues to trade within a sideways range between $100,000 and $110,000, consolidating just below its all-time record level.
"The mixed view of whether BTC will go above $110,000 again or drop into the $90,000 area doesn’t surprise me at all and underscores the overall indecision people and markets feel," said James Toledano, chief operating officer at Unity Wallet.
"The present BTC stalemate reflects a market caught between bullish long-term sentiment and short-term macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty," he added.
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What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
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- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
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What to know:
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