On the night of December 15 to 16, 2025, the price of Bitcoin sharply declined from $90,000 to nearly $85,000. This significant drop in the value of the first cryptocurrency triggered massive liquidations in the crypto futures market, totaling $658.89 million in a single day. The largest losses were suffered by traders who had opened long positions.
This is reported by Finway
Loss Structure and Liquidation Leaders
According to analytics, long position holders lost $583.15 million, while short positions incurred losses of $75.74 million. Throughout the day, 190,536 traders recorded losses in their capital. The largest liquidation volumes were observed in Bitcoin and Ethereum — $186.07 million and $234.94 million, respectively.
The leading platform in terms of liquidation volumes was the Binance exchange — $179.34 million. Following it were Bybit with $159.29 million and Hyperliquid — $153.88 million. Notably, one of the largest liquidations on Binance amounted to $11.58 million. This indicates a significant level of volatility observed in the cryptocurrency market in December.
Causes of the Decline and Market Impact
The drop in Bitcoin’s price began after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced on December 10 a reduction in the interest rate by 0.25%, to a range of 3.5%–3.75%. This acted as a catalyst for a wave of liquidations and heightened fear among investors.
At the time of preparing this material, Bitcoin is trading at $86,368, according to TradingView.
Just at the beginning of October this year, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of over $125,000. However, just a few days later, the crypto market experienced its largest wave of liquidations — exceeding $19 billion.
The Fear and Greed Index in the cryptocurrency market stands at 22 points, indicating a predominance of fear. Compared to the previous day, the indicator fell by five points.
The Bitcoin dominance rate in the cryptocurrency market at the time of publication is 59.24% (TradingView). Short-term Bitcoin holders continue to lose capital as the asset’s price remains below their average cost basis (information from CryptoQuant).