The crypto market suffered a brutal start to June as a wave of institutional selling drove Bitcoin down to $66,500. According to OKX data, Ethereum collapsed below the $1,900 support, tumbling 8% in 24 hours to $1,855, while SOL dropped to $73. The sell-off swept across major altcoins and crypto-related equities, souring market sentiment rapidly.
The derivatives market bore the brunt of the chaos. Over $1.7 billion in positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, the largest liquidation event since February, underscoring how overcrowded leveraged long positions had become. Long traders were the biggest casualties, with Bitcoin long liquidations alone exceeding $1.5 billion, effectively wiping out many over-leveraged bets.
Record ETF Outflows and Macro Headwinds
The sell-off was fueled by institutional money rushing for the exits. Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a single-day net outflow of $483.8 million, capping a brutal May during which the products bled $2.3 billion — the worst monthly outflow since 2026 and the most severe since November 2025. This came after net inflows of $1.32 billion in March and $1.97 billion in April, marking a stunning reversal that far outpaced the drop in prices.
From a macro perspective, the correlation between crypto and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to 84%, indicating that both markets are under similar broad-based selling pressure. As traditional investors reduced risk amid economic slowdown fears or policy uncertainty, Bitcoin and its peers could not escape the downdraft. Ethereum’s break below $1,900 triggered a cascade of automated stop-loss orders and derivative liquidations across major exchanges like Bitstamp and Binance, accelerating the decline.
HYPE Defies the Market, Hits New All-Time High
Even as the broader market plunged, Hyperliquid (HYPE) carved out an exceptional path. The token reached an all-time high of $75.51 on June 2 before pulling back to around $68, a level still up roughly 15% over the past week, despite a 24-hour decline of about 8%. Its market cap stood at $15.9 billion with a 24-hour trading volume of $1.54 billion, ranking it as the 10th-largest crypto asset globally. Against a market that shed 7.5% overall, HYPE’s relative strength stood out as a rare bright spot.
Zcash Shines: Regulatory Clarity Meets Privacy Demand
Zcash (ZEC) was the most dazzling outlier in the turmoil. The coin soared over 7% in 24 hours, spiking to an intraday high of $628 and briefly rising to the 11th spot by market cap, topping $11 billion. The immediate catalyst was the ZEC Foundation’s Q1 report confirming that the U.S. SEC had closed its investigation into the project without taking any enforcement action — a milestone for a privacy coin long mired in regulatory uncertainty. While that news had surfaced weeks earlier, ZEC’s resilience this time is rooted in strong fundamentals: from a low of $185 in February, the price rocketed to $688 by May, a gain of more than 270%. Meanwhile, the number of shielded addresses jumped from 1.47 million in 2024 to 5.11 million, signaling expanding on-chain privacy demand.
On the technical front, crypto analyst Ali Martinez noted that a TD Sequential buy signal had flashed on ZEC’s 12-hour chart, with a potential target of $642 if the $500 support level holds. Additionally, the governance vote for the NU7 network upgrade is expected to begin in June 2026, and a successful upgrade could further bolster the price by enhancing privacy features and attracting more users.
