Bitcoin Falls 2.5% for Fourth Straight Day as $450 Million in Leveraged Bets Liquidated

Bitcoin fell 2.5% in 24 hours to just below $62,400 for a fourth straight day, dragging the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) down 3.3% and leaving ether (ETH), $XRP and solana ($SOL) weaker.

“Smart-contract and DeFi coins lead losses as bitcoin wilts for 4th straight day Concerns about STRC, the dividend-paying preferred stock from Strategy continue to dominate market sentiment”

@coindesk

The CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index fell 4%, while the CoinDesk 80 and CoinDesk DeFi Select Index are described as following close behind.

@coindesk

Derivatives data in the CoinDesk report said more than $450 million in leveraged bets was liquidated in the past 24 hours, with most positions described as longs since the Wednesday hawkish Fed meeting.

In the bitcoin options market, traders were lifting put options in size, “prepping for a potential slide down to $52,000 or lower in the coming weeks,” according to the CoinDesk account.

The same CoinDesk coverage said funding rates for most tokens remained flat to negative, with ADA, XLM, and BCH funding rates down to between minus 20% and minus 30%.

Market sentiment in the CoinDesk coverage centered on Strategy (MSTR) and its dividend-paying preferred stock, STRC, as analysts at Marex said Strategy’s STRC preferred “collapse below par.”

The same Marex quote in the Bitget and @coindesk accounts said the market was “openly pricing the tail that it has to sell coins to defend the structure,” tying the pressure to the company’s bitcoin holdings.

@coindesk

CoinDesk also linked the bearish setup to derivatives positioning, saying open interest (OI) in bitcoin and ether futures was largely unchanged over the past 24 hours.

In that derivatives snapshot, SOL futures OI increased to over 70 million tokens, just shy of the June 5 record 71.57 million, while the report said XRP futures OI was hovering at its highest since October last year.

The CoinDesk account further described cumulative volume delta as negative OI-adjusted CVD for most of the biggest 25 tokens, except TRX and LAB, as sellers traded at market orders rather than passive limit orders.

While crypto prices were under pressure, CoinDesk’s separate coverage said Charles Schwab was working with Cboe Global Markets to launch a new type of options contract allowing customers to make yes-or-no wagers on the performance of the S&P 500.

“Charles Schwab is working with Cboe Global Markets to launch a new type of options contract that would allow customers to make yes-or-no wagers on the performance of the S&P 500, marking the brokerage's first move into prediction markets, according to a Wall Street Journal report”

CoinDesk

That Schwab product was described as functioning “more like a binary option,” paying a fixed cash amount or expiring worthless depending on whether the S&P 500 closes above or below a specified target price.

CoinDesk said Schwab and Cboe were also in talks to offer a similar product tied to a Cboe feature known as the “Plus Zone,” which would allow traders to receive a partial payout when their prediction was close to the final outcome.

The CoinDesk report also said Schwab planned to focus on events with “objectively verifiable outcomes in financial markets rather than contracts tied to politics, sports or other real-world events.”

In the same piece, CoinDesk noted that in May combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T, while RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.