Bitcoin Cracks Below $62K in Worst Week of 2026 as ETF Outflows Hit Record 13 Days and Strategy's Paper Loss Tops $11B

Markets & Flows

• Bitcoin fell roughly 17–21% in days to an intraday low of $61,556, trading near $63,000–$64,000 Thursday and down about 49% from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,080, as total crypto market cap shed more than $2 trillion since October. US spot Bitcoin ETFs logged a record 13th consecutive day of net outflows, draining about $4.4 billion (roughly 59,351 BTC) since May 15, with BlackRock's IBIT responsible for about 75% of the bleed; total cohort net assets fell from ~$104 billion to ~$83 billion. CoinShares 13F data showed professional investors cut Bitcoin ETF exposure 17% in Q1 to 261,000 BTC, with hedge funds and brokerages making up ~96% of the reduction. The selloff triggered roughly $4.47 billion in liquidations over four days (about 93% from longs), and BTC's revisit of the 200-week SMA near $61,600 has analysts citing 2022 bear-market parallels, with downside targets toward the $54,000 realized price and a possible bottom in three to six months. ^{[2][6][13][15][26][32][39][46]}
• Strategy's 843,706 BTC, bought at an average $75,699 for a $63.8 billion cost basis, sank to about $52.6 billion in value, leaving an $11.2 billion unrealized paper loss as BTC traded below its average price. Pressure mounted after Strategy paused accumulation to buy back convertible debt with $1.38 billion of equity cash, cutting its cash position to about $900 million, and after it sold 32 BTC for ~$2.5 million—its first sale since 2022—to fund preferred dividends. Its STRC preferred stock, which pays an 11.5% annualized dividend and underpins fundraising, slipped below its $100 par to roughly $94.60, dragging crypto proxies like Saturn's sUSDat and Apyx's apxUSD off their pegs. Saylor blamed 'capital rotation' into AI (citing $400 billion of AI infrastructure funding in six months) rather than impairment, while Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick said the low is 'almost in,' contingent on Strategy buying back 10x–100x what it sold; analysts note no contractual floor forces a BTC liquidation given conservative 11% net leverage. ^{[2][13][32][55]}
• The crypto drawdown coincided with stress in private credit, underscoring how illiquid yield products—on-chain and off—are unwinding together. Blackstone's $79 billion BCRED capped redemptions for the first time, honoring just 5% of shares against requests for 10%, while Cliffwater's $31 billion fund fielded 17% requests and returned about a third. Tokenized feeders mirrored the move: ACRED, a wrapper for Apollo's Diversified Credit Fund, lost 13% of market cap over three weeks, its first decline since inception. The lesson, per Protos, is that tokenization sped up buying but never shortened the weeks-to-months exit queue for the underlying loans. ^[14]