The crypto market kicked off June on a grim note. OKX data shows Bitcoin slipping to $66,500, Ethereum breaking below the $1,900 mark with an 8% 24-hour decline to trade at $1,855, and SOL at $73. The sell-off spread across major coins, altcoins, and crypto stocks.
This round of selling triggered the largest wave of leveraged liquidations since February. Over the past 24 hours, total crypto derivative liquidations exceeded $1.7 billion, with long positions bearing the brunt—Bitcoin-related long liquidations alone surpassed $1.5 billion.
Institutional Selling and ETF Outflows Drive the Decline
This was no ordinary spot market correction. Bitcoin spot ETFs witnessed a single-day net outflow of $483.8 million, contributing to a May monthly outflow of $2.3 billion—the largest since 2026 and the worst since November 2025. In contrast, March and April had seen net inflows of $1.32 billion and $1.97 billion, respectively. The speed of institutional selling now far exceeds what price declines alone could explain.
From a macro perspective, persistent institutional selling is the core driver. The overall crypto market shows an 84% correlation with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, indicating shared macro-level selling pressure. Ethereum's breach of the $1,900 psychological level triggered automatic stop-loss orders and derivative liquidations, creating a chain reaction on exchanges like Bitstamp and Binance that accelerated the downtrend.
HYPE and ZEC Stand Out
Amid the broad-market decline, Hyperliquid (HYPE) was an outlier. It reached an all-time high of $75.51 on June 2 before retreating to $68 at press time, down about 8% over 24 hours but still up roughly 15% over the past week. With a market cap of approximately $15.9 billion and 24-hour trading volume of $1.54 billion, HYPE ranked 10th globally, displaying notable relative strength as the broader crypto market fell 7.5% over the same period.
The most striking contrarian was Zcash (ZEC), which surged over 7% in 24 hours to an intraday high of $628. Its market cap briefly ranked 11th, exceeding $11 billion. The catalyst was the ZEC Foundation's Q1 report confirming that the SEC had closed its investigation with no enforcement action—a significant regulatory relief for a privacy coin project long mired in uncertainty. However, the news had been public for weeks; the coin's resilience is rooted in strong fundamentals.
ZEC's On-Chain Growth and Technical Signals
Looking further back, ZEC plunged to a low of $185 in February, then rallied to a high of $688 in May—a gain exceeding 270%. The number of shielded addresses has surged from 1.47 million in 2024 to 5.11 million currently, reflecting growing demand for on-chain privacy.
From a technical perspective, crypto analyst Ali Martinez points out that a TD Sequential buy signal has appeared on the 12-hour chart. If ZEC holds the $500 support, the next target is $642. Additionally, the governance vote for the Zcash network upgrade NU7 is expected to begin in June 2026, and the subsequent technical roadmap may continue to provide price support.