Bitcoin Drops to $61K as Strategy Sells and ETFs Keep Draining

Strategy, the largest institutional Bitcoin ( $BTC ) investor, recently did what the market had quietly dreaded and sold $BTC for the first time in a long time. The reaction was about as calm as you'd expect: Bitcoin fell to around $61,000, shedding more than $2,000 in value in under an hour over the past 24 hours. The move triggered over $1 billion in leveraged liquidations across the wider market, with roughly 90% of those being long positions. Ethereum ( $ETH ) wasn't spared either, dropping sharply in percentage terms as investors scrambled to derisk, with the $ETH price falling to around $1,730.

One of the more exciting trading days of 2026 so far, in the sense that nobody watching had any fun. Analysts attribute Bitcoin's decline to a combination of escalating US-Iran tensions and the aforementioned sell-off by institutional heavyweight Strategy. Institutional selling remains a primary suspect in the drop, and crypto investment firm Abraxas Capital appears to have joined the party, also offloading Bitcoin.

According to on-chain analyst EmberCN, Abraxas sold approximately 2,469 Bitcoin — worth around $166 million — at an average price of $67,210 per BTC over the last 24 hours. The data shows the BTC was sent to the Kraken exchange, then withdrawn as USDT and USDC, because nothing soothes a sell-off like a bag of stablecoins.

Meanwhile, according to Lookonchain's report, wallets linked to Mt. Gox transferred 116.3 Bitcoin, worth approximately $8.16 million, to Bitstamp. The amount is small relative to daily volumes, but any movement from Mt. Gox addresses is enough to get creditors twitching, which at this point is something of a long-running tradition.

On the ETF side, the bleeding continues. SoSoValue data shows a net outflow of $396.6 million from US spot Bitcoin ETFs, marking the 13th consecutive day of net outflows. Total net outflows over that stretch now stand at $4.37 billion, with the heaviest withdrawals concentrated in BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC products.

Market analysts note that the downward trend is still in play on the Bitcoin chart, and the risk of a deeper move toward the $50,000–$52,000 zone remains on the table. The 200-week simple moving average (SMA) is the level to watch — currently sitting around $61,800. Analysts argue that as long as $BTC hovers near this 200-week SMA, the lower scenario can't be considered confirmed, given that this level has marked the floor in previous bear markets. *This is not investment advice.