A sharp pullback in crypto markets late Monday triggered over $500 million in long liquidations, erasing earlier gains as bitcoin (BTC) slipped from weekend highs and traders reacted to de-escalating U.S.-China trade tensions.

Coinglass data shows more than $530 million worth of long positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours — with nearly $200 million coming from bitcoin-tracked futures and $170 million from ether (ETH) products.

Liquidations occur when an exchange forcibly closes a trader’s leveraged position due to insufficient margin. It happens when a trader cannot meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position, that is, when they don’t have sufficient funds to keep the trade open.

Majors bore the brunt of the drop, with dogecoin (DOGE) and cardano (ADA) each falling as much as 7%, and solana (SOL), xrp (XRP) and BNB Chain’s BNB losing between 5%–6%.

The liquidations marked a reversal from last week’s euphoric rally, which had seen ETH gain 40% and major altcoins push double-digit percentage gains in a wave of short squeezes. That move had triggered over $1 billion in short liquidations — the highest since 2021 — and sent bitcoin briefly past $104,000 before momentum faded.

Markets turned lower during U.S. trading hours Monday after reports of a temporary tariff truce between the U.S. and China, with the removal of several mutual levies and both pledging renewed trade cooperation.

While easing tensions supported equities, the development may have tempered the risk-on narrative that had fueled crypto’s breakout over the past week.

Futures open interest across major exchanges also fell by more than $1.2 billion, suggesting a sharp deleveraging as long traders were forced to exit positions, Coinglass data showed.

Analysts caution that while the near-term flush may reset frothy sentiment, with eyes on the next Fed meeting in June.

“Right now macro concerns are driving the market and the next Fed decision and outlook remarks in June will likely be the key factor in driving Bitcoin past its previous all-time high,” Jeff Mei, COO at crypto exchange BTSE, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

“This would stimulate lending and investment in the US economy and hopefully drive growth, avoiding the recession investors are apprehensive about,” Mei added.

How is crypto changing the face of finance? What’s next for stablecoins, tokenization, and Web 3 marketing? How will digital assets be regulated in the future?

These are just some of the questions up for debate as Consensus 2025 kicks off in Toronto this Wednesday. Staged this year at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, crypto’s oldest “big tent” event gets underway at a pivotal moment for the industry.

Crypto is front-and-center in the national conversation and this year’s event will feature many names making news and making waves.

Eric Trump, whose mining startup, American Bitcoin, this morning announced that it plans to go public, is a headline speaker on Thursday.

We’ll hear from Bo Hines, head of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, on the White House strategy to pass legislation on crypto this year.

Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, will sit for a fireside chat to discuss crypto culture, memecoins and the future of investing.

There’s an Open Money Summit featuring the biggest names in DeFi, a Brand and Creator Summit for companies positioning themselves for the next phase of the internet, and an AI Summit with a packed schedule of speakers at the intersection of AI and blockchain.

Other headline speakers include Chris Pavlovski (Rumble), Charles Hoskinson (Cardano), Kevin O’Leary (Shark Tank), Adrienne Harris (NYDFS), Justin Sun, David Goyer and dozens more from across the crypto and blockchain industry.

Our Explorations stage will have in-depth discussions on hot topics such as DePIN, crypto policy, staking, advanced trading, and Canada’s Web3 future.

We’ll also have a Hackathon (organized with EasyA), Pitchfest, a Research Symposium (with IEEE), a showing of the movie «Vitalik: An Ethereum Story» with the director (and special guests) and dozens of side-events and parties to attend across Toronto.

For coverage of Consensus 2025 including interviews with speakers, see here.
The full agenda can be found here.

Visit CoinDesk.com for a livestream and ongoing coverage of all the news, rumors and gossip from crypto’s annual gathering.

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) surged over 8% on Monday after market closing on news that the stock will be included in the broad-market S&P 500 stock index.

The company would replace Discover Financial starting on May 19, according to an S&P press release. Discover Financial is being acquired by Capital One.

The S&P 500 tracks 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. across several sectors, including tech, healthcare, finance and more. Prominent names in the index include Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google. COIN, at a market cap of nearly $53 billion, currently trades on the Nasdaq exchange.

The inclusion would be a significant milestone for the digital asset industry, giving millions of average investors and model portfolios exposure to a crypto-focused company.

«COIN about to be in every portfolio in America,» Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at asset manager Bitwise, said in an X post. «The S&P 500 inclusion is going to force 7x the daily trading volume into [the] stock.»

Shares of the company jumped to as high as $225 following the reports, up 8.6% in post-market hours and adding to the nearly 4% gain on Monday.

UPDATE (May 12, 21:50 UTC): Adds analyst comment, detail about Capital One acquiring Discover Financial.