Bitcoin climbed back above $63,000 at the start of the week, trading around $63,310 and up about 4% from two days earlier. That bounce might look orderly from a chart. The week that set it up was not.
The move comes after one of crypto’s more disorderly stretches since the FTX implosion in late 2022. Bitcoin’s pullback erased about $390 billion in market cap and nearly $7 billion in liquidated leverage, according to the Benzinga report. Friday’s low hit $59,100. Breaking a level Bitcoin had “defended” for weeks, around $60,000, is the kind of failure that tends to change how traders price risk in the next session, not just how they redraw support lines.
Ethereum didn’t sidestep the damage. It traded down to roughly $1,505, a level it had not visited since early 2023. Major altcoins followed in step, moving “with roughly the same speed,” because in crypto, when the floor gives way, it often gives way everywhere at once. That matters for anyone watching relative strength, since correlation tends to spike when liquidity thins.
What actually triggered the selloff
Understanding Monday’s rebound requires working backward to what drove the Thursday through Saturday move, and the source’s answer is macro first.
Benzinga points to two data releases arriving in sequence and both landing hot.
First, May inflation came in warmer than analysts expected. The report frames this as the quiet killer of any lingering hope that the Federal Reserve might signal rate relief before year-end. In rate-sensitive markets, that shift in expectations is often enough to force repricing, especially for assets that trade like “risk” during stress.
Then the May jobs report arrived and made the inflation problem look smaller by comparison. Benzinga cites the economy adding 172,000 new jobs in May versus a consensus forecast around 85,000. The unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%. Those numbers, as the report notes, don’t point toward cooling pressure that would make rate cuts feel imminent.
Why the bounce may not erase the structural hit
A 4% Monday bounce does not automatically unwind what came before. Benzinga is blunt about that mismatch. The market’s late-week slide was tied to “structural damage” left behind after the liquidations and the market cap drawdown.
Liquidation data is especially relevant here because it reflects forced selling, not just discretionary downsizing. When leverage is cleared quickly, the post-event tape can look jumpy. That can produce sharp recoveries even if the underlying position risk hasn’t fully returned to normal.
At the same time, the report’s framing highlights why this week is a policy and macro story, not only a crypto-native one. If rate relief expectations have been cut, the downside risk isn’t only about whether $60,000 reappears. It is about whether risk appetite can stabilize when policy expectations remain restrictive.
The hard questions that start next
Benzinga’s headline logic is simple. Once a key level breaks after weeks of defense, the questions change.
The desk is left with two practical issues implied by the report.
First, whether the market can absorb the leverage reset without repeating the cascade pattern. The source points to nearly $7 billion in liquidated leverage, which signals how quickly margin stress escalated.
Second, whether macro data continues to reinforce tighter-for-longer pricing. The report ties the selloff to warmer inflation and a stronger-than-expected jobs print, with unemployment at 4.3%. If more prints land similarly, crypto’s correlation to broader risk assets often stays high.
Here are the macro points Benzinga cited as the sequence behind the move.
| Data point cited by Benzinga | What it showed | Market implication in the report |
|---|---|---|
| May inflation | Ran warmer than analysts expected | Reduced hope of Fed signaling rate relief before year-end |
| May jobs report | 172,000 new jobs vs ~85,000 consensus | Made the inflation problem look secondary |
| Unemployment rate | 4.3% | Reinforced a tight labor market narrative |
For now, Bitcoin is above $63,000 again. But Benzinga’s “hard questions” are about whether the market can rebuild confidence after a breakdown that came with widespread liquidations and macro pressure. A bounce can be real. It still may not be the end of the problem.