Crypto Rout Deepens: $583m Liquidated as Bitcoin Drops to $86,000
Story: written by Myra December 17,2025
Cryptocurrency markets sank further into turmoil on Tuesday as an intensified sell-off pushed prices sharply lower, triggering massive liquidations across leading digital assets. Bitcoin slid to around $86,000, amplifying panic-driven trading throughout the market.
Data shows that about $583 million worth of positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with long traders bearing the brunt as bullish bets were forcefully unwound after prices broke key support levels. Tokens tied to decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) led the losses, falling by nearly six percent on average.
Investor sentiment weakened significantly, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index plunging to 11—an extreme fear level that often reflects panic selling and expectations of further downside.
Technical signals continue to paint a bearish picture. According to TradingView, 75 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation are now trading below both their 50-day and 200-day simple moving averages, a classic indicator of sustained downtrends. Major coins including bitcoin, ether, solana, BNB and XRP—together representing about 78 percent of the $3 trillion crypto market—remain under pressure below these levels.
Such breakdowns typically reinforce bearish momentum, increasing the likelihood of further declines as traders cut exposure and stop-loss orders are triggered. Meanwhile, traditional equity markets have shown greater resilience, with far fewer Nasdaq 100 stocks trading below comparable technical thresholds, highlighting a growing divergence between crypto assets and tech equities.
Institutional activity is also signalling caution. US spot crypto ETFs recorded significant net outflows, with bitcoin spot ETFs seeing $357.6 million withdrawn, largely from Fidelity’s FBTC, Bitwise’s BITB and Grayscale’s GBTC. Ethereum spot ETFs also posted $224.94 million in outflows, led by BlackRock’s ETHA and Grayscale’s ETHE.
Despite the sharp decline, indicators suggest the market may not yet have reached full capitulation. Only eight major tokens—PI, APT, ALGO, FLARE, VET, JUP, IP and KAIA—are currently classified as oversold based on the 14-day relative strength index (RSI). This implies that selling pressure may not be fully exhausted, leaving room for additional downside before a sustainable rebound emerges.
As year-end approaches, traders remain defensive, with heavy liquidations, extreme fear, weak market breadth and continued ETF outflows keeping the crypto market vulnerable to further losses.
