Bitcoin Slides Below $70K as Strategy Sale and ETF Outflows Rattle Markets

Bitcoin fell to its lowest price since April 7 on Tuesday, slipping under $70,000 amid a confluence of bearish pressures. The drop was accelerated by growing unease after Strategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, sold 32 BTC for $2.5 million between May 26 and May 31, executing at an average price of $77,135 per coin to fund preferred stock dividend distributions. That marked the firm's first Bitcoin sale since 2022, and unease deepened after $30 million in BTC had been transferred to a Coinbase Prime wallet the prior week, with analysts split on whether the move signals a broader shift in Michael Saylor's treasury strategy.

The sell-off compounded a brutal stretch for U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, which logged 11 consecutive sessions of net outflows through Monday, the longest redemption streak since those funds launched in 2024, totaling roughly $3.45 billion as risk capital rotated toward an AI-driven equities rally. The DeFi sector added to the gloomy backdrop, with total value locked across all protocols sinking to around $78 billion, the lowest reading since October 2024. Liquidations hit $768 million over 24 hours, with a heavily lopsided 84-16 split between long and short positions wiped out.

Japan's LDP Pushes Crypto ETFs and Yen Stablecoins Across Asia

Not all the day's news pointed lower. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party submitted a formal proposal to Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama calling for a legal framework to allow crypto ETFs to trade as official investment instruments in Japanese financial markets, which would put the country alongside the United States and Hong Kong. The LDP's blockchain promotion panel also urged the government to expand yen-backed stablecoins as a regional payment settlement tool across Asia, positioning them as a counterweight to dollar-pegged tokens that currently dominate the $315 billion stablecoin market. The push builds on a cabinet-approved draft amendment from April that reclassified cryptocurrency as a financial product under Japanese law.

In payments, MoneyGram announced the launch of MGUSD, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin issued on the Stellar blockchain, targeting its more than 60 million customers across nearly 500,000 retail locations worldwide. The token is issued by Stripe-owned Bridge, minted using M0 smart contract infrastructure, and held in Fireblocks wallets before being delivered through the MoneyGram app. The launch transitions the company from using third-party stablecoins to issuing its own branded digital dollar, deepening a five-year partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation originally built around remittance services. Stablecoins' total market size could reach $4 trillion by 2030 from around $300 billion today, according to projections from Citi.