Bitcoin fell to a nine-month low of $81,000 on Friday, triggering billions in liquidations as rising tensions in the Middle East and fresh U.S. tariff threats from President Donald Trump spurred a wave of selling.
The cryptocurrency dropped to $81,058 on Coinbase in early trading, its lowest level since April, according to TradingView. This marks a 35% decline from Bitcoin’s all-time high of $126,000 in October.
Data from CoinGlass shows that 270,000 traders were liquidated over the past 24 hours, with total liquidations reaching $1.68 billion. Most of the liquidated positions—93%—were leveraged long trades, primarily in Bitcoin and Ether.
Bitcoin is now testing a critical support zone on the monthly chart, while a broader crypto market sell-off has erased $200 billion in total market capitalization in just one day.
Geopolitical tensions and tariffs weigh on markets
Markets plunged as the U.S. sent another warship to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran, with President Trump saying he plans to engage in talks with Tehran.
“We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn’t have to use them,” Trump told reporters Thursday.
The president also declared a national emergency and signed an executive order imposing tariffs on goods from countries that sell or supply oil to Cuba, fueling further market concerns.
Precious metals also felt the pressure, with gold down 9% from its record high of $5,600 per ounce on Thursday and silver correcting 11.5%.
Tech earnings and AI fears exacerbate sell-off
Jeff Mei, chief operations officer at the BTSE exchange, said disappointing tech earnings added to market weakness.
“Last night’s market dip had a clear correlation to Microsoft’s earnings flop,” he told Cointelegraph. Microsoft shares plunged 10% Thursday—the steepest daily drop since March 2020—after reporting record spending and slowing cloud sales growth.
“Investors are worried that a broader pullback in AI-related tech stocks could ripple across the market, prompting some to de-risk their portfolios,” Mei added.
“We think the dip was relatively overblown as cryptocurrencies have already declined since October, and that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies remain at an attractive price with limited downside.”
