$150B wiped: Bitcoin drops below $87k on Japan yield shockBitcoin price erased recent gains, shedding nearly 5% to below $87,000
This came as a surge in Japanese government bond yields triggered a broad risk-off sentiment, shattering a fragile, low-volume market structure.
According to CryptoSlate data, BTC fell from a consolidation range near $91,000, wiping out approximately $150 billion in total crypto market capitalization.Japan’s carry-trade repricing set the decline in motion, but trading volume data showed that the selloff worsened due to a market running on minimal liquidity
According to 10x Research, the crypto market had just delivered one of its lowest-volume weeks since July, leaving order books dangerously thin and unable to absorb institutional selling pressure.
So, Bitcoin’s decline wasn’t just a reaction to headlines but a structural failure at a key resistance level.
The volume vacuum
Beneath the surface of Bitcoin’s $3.1 trillion market cap, which rose 4% week-over-week, liquidity seems to have evaporated.
Data from 10x Research indicates that average weekly volumes have plummeted to $127 billion. Bitcoin volumes specifically were down 31% at $59.9 billion, while ETH volumes collapsed 43%.
This lack of participation turned what could have been a pretty standard technical correction into a liquidity event.
Timothy Misir, head of research at BRN, told CryptoSlate that this was “not a measured correction.” Instead, he painted it as a “liquidity event driven by positioning and macro repricing.”
He further observed that momentum “abruptly flipped” after a messy November, creating a deep gap lower that flushed leveraged longs. November was Bitcoin’s worst-performing month this year, losing nearly 18% of its value.