Bitcoin Drops to $61K as Whale Banks $3.56M Short Profit

Four-month minimum: Bitcoin fell to $61,309 over the last 24 hours before staging a slight rebound. Massive profit-taking: A wallet identified as "pension-usdt.eth" closed a 1,400 BTC short, pocketing $3.56 million. Record liquidations: The derivatives market shed $634.6 million, all from liquidated long positions.

Bitcoin's bearish momentum intensified over the past 24 hours after losing the $70,000 floor. The flagship crypto dropped to $61,000, marking a four-month low. At the time of writing, BTC was trading around $63,500, an intraday decline of 4.7%. The retreat to levels not seen since February triggered a surge in derivatives activity, forcing whales to reshuffle their positions.

Strategic moves in the derivatives market

As Bitcoin's price slid, short-side contracts became extremely profitable. Data from on-chain analytics platform Onchain Lens shows that whale address "pension-usdt.eth" fully closed a 1,400 BTC short position worth $93.8 million.

"Whale 'pension-usdt.eth' has completely closed its $BTC short position, making $3.56M. It has also opened a new 50,000 $ETH (3x) short position (value: $89M), already up over $4.5M in profit. Its profit is now over $39.6M." — Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens), June 4, 2026

With this exit, the trader extended their streak to 21 consecutive winning transactions. Blockchain records show the move netted $3.56 million. The same capital was promptly rotated into the Ethereum ecosystem. The steady stream of profitable shorts suggests sellers remain comfortably in control of current price action.

Meanwhile, both retail and institutional traders kept opening fresh sell contracts. Bitcoin's Long/Short Ratio slipped to 0.94. Market reports indicate most participants are leaning bearish and bracing for further downside in the near term.

Million-dollar losses and technical pressure on support

While the shorts raked it in, those positioned for upside took heavy hits. According to Onchain Lens, trader Garret Jin's positions are sitting on floating losses. His 5x leveraged Bitcoin long has accumulated unrealized losses north of $17 million. Despite the damage, the position remains open. On-chain metrics show he has paid $153,000 in funding fees to keep the trade from being forcibly liquidated.

Not everyone escaped that cleanly. Data from CoinGlass shows global Bitcoin liquidations hit $752 million over the past 24 hours. Of that, $634.6 million came exclusively from longs wiped out by the drop.

Bitcoin's technical picture continues to flash bearish. The Average Directional Index (ADX), paired with the simple moving average (SMA), climbed to a fresh high of 47 on its negative reading. The broader ADX indicator rose to 38, while the positive directional index slipped to 6. By traditional analytical standards, this configuration signals significant downward pressure.

Technical analysts note that this setup typically precedes a continuation of the existing bearish structure. If conditions hold, price could break below the psychological $60,000 mark and head toward the $58,600 technical level. To flip the bias, BTC would need to reclaim $70,000 and consolidate a daily cl