Bitcoin plunged nearly $2,000 in 20 minutes, about $400 millions in long positions liquidated.

According to information from Zhihu Finance APP, data shows that on October 6, 2026, Bitcoin's intraday decline exceeded 5%, plummeting nearly $2,000 within about 20 minutes, wiping out approximately $400 million in leveraged long bets. According to Coinglass data, within just one hour, about $394 million in positions were liquidated, with around $384 million coming from longs—traders betting on price increases. Bitcoin-related positions suffered the largest losses, with approximately $209 million liquidated; Ethereum followed with about $87 million; Solana with around $27 million, and XRP at roughly $11 million.

Expanding the window to 24 hours reveals a significantly magnified liquidation scale. Total market liquidations reached about $1.02 billion, once again mainly driven by long positions.

In the crypto derivatives market, when leveraged traders’ collateral fails to cover their losses, exchanges automatically close positions, dumping assets onto the market. This type of forced selling exerts downward pressure on prices, triggering further rounds of liquidations at lower prices and further intensifying the selling pressure.

This round of selling started with a technical breakdown. Bitcoin fell below a key on-chain support level, an area where buyers had previously stepped in to defend the price.

A small-scale corporate sale also added to the pessimism. Strategy—formerly known as MicroStrategy and the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin—sold 32 BTC, worth around $2.5 million, to pay dividends.

Macro pressures are also mounting. Market-discussed factors include capital rotation into AI concept stocks, robust employment data, rising energy prices, and fading hopes for a near-term Federal Reserve rate cut.

This scenario is nothing new for crypto traders. Perpetual contract leveraged positions amplify what would otherwise be ordinary spot market declines. The drop back to April levels means the market has erased a considerable portion of its gains from recent months.

When approximately $384 million of the roughly $394 million in one-hour liquidations come from longs, it shows that bullish sentiment has become excessively crowded and fragile. For spot holders without leverage, such events are painful but still bearable; for leveraged traders, the size of their positions and margin buffers determine whether they can survive the correction or are completely wiped out.

Strategy’s sale for dividend payments is also worth noting. The question is whether the company’s need to finance dividends will become a recurring source of small-scale sales and how the market will interpret this signal from Bitcoin’s most closely watched corporate believer.

After such a washout, most excessive leverage has now been purged. Traders will watch to see whether Bitcoin can reclaim the lost support level or if those former bottoms now become resistance zones.