The crypto market dropped hard in early trading today. Bitcoin (BTC) fell close to the $109,000 level, pulling the rest of the market down with it. The sell-off came from a mix of whale selling, worries about the economy, technical factors, and a flood of liquidations in leveraged trades.
In the last 24 hours, about $413M was liquidated across the market: $351M longs and $69M shorts (CoinGlass data at the time of writing). Just days earlier, liquidations spiked to nearly $900M in 24 hours, the biggest wipe-out since early August, showing how much leverage had built up before this move.
More data shows how big the market wipeout has been. AInvest said that in August, more than $161 million in perpetual futures were liquidated. Bitcoin lost about $36 million and Ethereum about $97 million, with most of the damage hitting long positions — 63% for BTC and 65% for ETH. This shows that the drop is being made worse by forced long liquidations.
A Whale Sold 24,000 BTC Drop Downs The BTC Price
A big wallet sold 24,000 BTC worth about $2.7 billion. This sudden move pushed Bitcoin down by around $4,000 in just minutes and sparked a wave of liquidations across the market. Reports link the sale to Bitcoin’s drop below $110,000 and about $900 million in leveraged positions getting wiped in the 24 hours around the event.
The Defiant said “almost $900 million” was liquidated by late August 25. CryptoBriefing noted “over $880 million” when BTC broke under $110,000. Yahoo Finance and Economic Times also highlighted the 24,000 BTC trade and the $4,000 price drop.
🚨A dormant whale woke up after 5 years and sold 24,000 BTC for ETH.
That single move crashed Bitcoin to $112K and erased $45B in market value.🔥
The entity still holds 152,874 $BTC from wallets with funds dating back 6 years.🐳 pic.twitter.com/cM0SuIYxBt
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) August 25, 2025
At the same time, some old Bitcoin holders are swapping BTC into ETH. Analyst MLM said one whale sold 18,142 BTC worth $2.04 billion and used most of it to buy Ethereum. In total, two wallets bought 416,598 ETH ($1.98 billion), with 275,500 ETH ($1.3 billion) already staked. Another whale also sold 670 BTC ($76 million) to open a long ETH position. WhaleWire’s Jacob King said on X that the first big sell caused panic selling from others, which made the crash worse. He added that most of the funds went into Ethereum, with $2B bought and $1.3B staked.
Huge Bitcoin Options Expiry
Today was one of the biggest Bitcoin options expiries of the year, with about $12–14 billion in contracts. Events like this often cause strong price swings because traders need to adjust or close their positions around important strike levels. This added more pressure and volatility to the market.
Only about 12% of call options were set at $115,000 or below, so most are now out-of-the-money. On the other hand, 21% of put options are set at $115,000 or higher, with many grouped around $112,000. This gives bears more strength to push Bitcoin’s price lower before the monthly expiry.
Still, it may be early to say that bullish bets are completely finished. Traders are waiting for US Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday. Any hint that rate cuts are more likely could help asset prices. New US jobless claims data came in hotter than expected on Thursday, adding to that expectation and keeping macro uncertainty high.
Call and Put Options
“Dip Before The Good News” – September Rate Cut Hopes
People often expect markets to dip before good news hits. Traders tend to take profits or reduce risk early, then jump back in when the news is confirmed.
Earlier in August, optimism was high. CME FedWatch showed a 94% chance of a September rate cut, and US stocks even hit record highs—S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000 all gained. But that mood shifted quickly as Powell spoke at Jackson Hole, and the odds dropped to around 75–84%. Investors cooled off.
Source: Nasdaq
Right now, markets seem to be sitting tight, waiting on more economic data. Federal Reserve Governor Waller hinted at possible rate cuts starting in September if the job market slows. He flagged areas that could trigger action, but didn’t promise anything yet.
“I fully expect more rates cuts as the labor market continues to soften; growth is probably still going to be slow in the second-half of the year,” Waller said. “Because monetary policy tends to work with these kind of long lags, you don’t want to wait.”
All this means a “dip before good news” may be unfolding again. People expect a cut could still happen, but they’re staying cautious until it’s real.
Binance Paused Futures Trading
Binance had to pause all USD₨-M (Unified Margin) futures trading because of a system problem. The service was down for about 17–25 minutes before coming back online. Even though it was short, the break shook traders. Binance is the largest derivatives exchange, so any pause makes people nervous about liquidations and spreads.
We’re aware of an issue affecting Futures UM trading on Binance.
All futures trading is temporarily unavailable. Our team is working to resolve this as soon as possible.
New updates will be shared here. Thank you for your patience.
— Binance (@binance) August 29, 2025
CCData’s June 2025 review shows derivatives made up about 77.8% of total crypto trading that month. Binance has kept the biggest share of that market, often above half depending on the report. Because of that, even a small outage adds extra stress to risk and hedging flows.
