I just reviewed the charts and things got ugly on Monday. Bitcoin dropped from nearly $68,600 on Saturday to $64,300 within hours, wiping out all weekend gains. What surprised me was the magnitude of what happened afterward.

A single liquidation of $61.5 million in the BTC-USDT pair on a certain derivatives exchange marked the largest individual liquidation in 24 hours. That’s not an average retail position, but something from a whale or a major fund. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. In total, $468 million was liquidated across more than 137,000 traders throughout the industry. The most alarming part: 93% of that was long positions, about $434 million. Basically, the entire market was betting that Bitcoin would go up and was punished for it.

Bitcoin futures in particular saw $213 million in forced liquidations. Ether lost $113 million, Solana $19 million. Even smaller tokens like HYPE added up to $10 million in forced closures. The domino effect was brutal.

What worries me most is the sentiment. The Fear and Greed Index dropped to 5 out of 100, categorized as ‘extreme fear’. That has only happened three times since 2018: August 2019, June 2022, and earlier this month when Bitcoin fell to $60,000. Glassnode data shows that short-term holders are still capitulating, with net realized losses around $500 million daily.

Now Bitcoin is 48% below its all-time high of $126,000 in October. Even compared to the previous cycle peak of $69,000 in 2021, we’re down 5.5%. That level once seemed like the ceiling, now it feels like a floor still being tested.

What I see is a pattern that repeats constantly: traders reload long positions on every small rebound, and the market punishes them each time. Bitcoin briefly surpassed $76,000 last week but retreated to $74,000. We’ve been in this struggle for two months without a real breakout. Funding rates on Bitcoin perpetuals have been negative for 46 days straight, even though open interest continues to rise. That’s a strange contradiction suggesting something’s off in the market structure.

What’s clear to me is that as long as this cycle of strong rallies followed by massive liquidations and resets continues, sentiment will remain fragile. The numbers don’t lie: a pressured market where those betting on rises keep getting hurt again and again. Until we see a full capitulation or a real structural change, this could last longer than many expect.