Bitcoin Hovers Below $60K While Yen Crashes, Miners Capitulate, and Saylor Says "Actually, Maybe Sell

Bitcoin BTC $59,480.98 traded below $60,000 on Tuesday, slipping more than 1% as the Japanese yen fell to 162.40 per U.S. dollar — its weakest level since October 1986 — lifting the dollar index to 101.32 from nearly 101 on Monday. BTC remains under its 200-week simple moving average, a level that has "historically served as a critical psychological and technical floor," according to Mike McCluskey, co-founder of tokenization platform tx. The yen slide has revived concerns about disorderly unwinds of yen-funded carry trades spilling into equities, bonds and crypto.

The selling pressure drew a fresh wave of liquidations. More than $1.1 billion in leveraged crypto positions were forcibly closed over the past 24 hours, of which $875 million were longs, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin futures open interest jumped to 778,000 BTC from recent lows near 730,000 BTC, with the increase concentrated during Thursday's late selloff as traders added shorts into the decline. Ether ETH open interest held steady near 14 million ETH, while Solana SOL open interest stood at 72.70 million SOL, just shy of a record 76 million SOL set June 24. BVIV, Bitcoin's volatility index, dropped to 47%, pausing a two-week climb.

On the demand side, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs bled roughly $691 million on Thursday, their largest single-day outflow since May 27, according to Farside Investors. Annual growth in ETF Bitcoin holdings has slumped to "basically zero" for the first time since the funds launched in 2024, with ETFs now adding to Bitcoin's supply rather than absorbing it, CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno told Milk Road. Over the past month, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of 71,600 BTC, while Digital Asset Treasuries added just 7,500 BTC, leaving combined flows 77,000 BTC in the red after adjusting for new issuance. About 50,000 BTC was sent to exchanges at a loss over the past 24 hours, and the short-term holder market cap fell to $237.7 billion, its lowest since October 2024.

Strategy, the largest publicly listed BTC holder, authorized buybacks of up to $1 billion each in preferred and Class A common shares and unveiled a $1.25 billion "monetization program" that could see the company sell more than $1 billion of bitcoin — a break from founder Michael Saylor's long-held "never sell" mantra. "The can has been kicked down the road for a year or two," Arca CIO Jeff Dorman said on X, adding that "Cap structure trades will pop up again in the future, because again, there's no real answer here that satisfies all parts of the cap structure other than BTC mooning." Strategy's preferred stock STRC has declined in recent weeks, weakening its main funding channel for BTC purchases.

On-chain stress signals continue to mount. Bitcoin's production cost has climbed to roughly $78,000, well above the spot price near $60,000, and miners have begun going offline — a pattern that has historically emerged in late-stage bear phases. The Bitcoin long-term holder MVRV has compressed to 1.24, the lowest in three years, according to analyst Axel Adler Jr., with the long-term holder average cost basis at $48,400. Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said Bitcoin's bull case "revolves on two things," the passage of the Clarity Act and a Fed rate cut, adding that the war in Iran "has slowed the cutting cycle down." Friday's Deribit expiry of about $10.6 billion in Bitcoin options — with BTC trading far below the roughly $72,000 "max pain" level — leaves roughly 80% of contracts set to expire worthless, while Myriad traders put a 77% to 80% probability on BTC falling to $55,000 before recovering to $84,000.