While earlier legs of the decline were driven by crypto-specific liquidations, the recent pressure is tied to wider cross-asset stress. Some $722 million of bullish positions across tokens have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, Coinglass data shows.

“Liquidations have been heavy, sentiment has swung risk-off, and price action is now being driven more by balance-sheet mechanics than narrative flow,” said Wenny Cai, chief operating officer of trading platform SynFutures. “This doesn’t signal the end of institutional participation, but it does mark the end of complacency.”

Markets entered a period of synchronized selling Wednesday, with the Nasdaq 100 down more than 2% and losses spreading across software, chipmakers, and other rate-sensitive corners of the equity market. Stock declines continued Thursday, with most benchmarks in Asia and Europe lower.

ETF Flows

Unlike equity markets, however, Bitcoin and other tokens had already been sliding for months.

“Crypto sentiment is currently in extreme fear as the market has been routed over the last week,” said Andrew Tu, head of business development at crypto market maker Efficient Frontier. “If $72,000 doesn’t hold for Bitcoin, it’s highly likely we will visit $68,000 and potentially even decline back down to the lows of 2024 after the initial rally.”

Flows to US-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds remain choppy. After seeing about $562 million in net inflows on Monday, more than $800 million flowed out of such ETFs over the next two sessions, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Skepticism about Bitcoin’s role as a safe haven during market stress is growing. The token is now down almost 20% this year, and the broader crypto market has lost over $460 billion in value in the past week.