Major altcoins including XRP and Ethereum mirrored Bitcoin’s recovery trajectory, with ETH holding near $2,000 and XRP around $1.40
Saturday witnessed a dramatic collapse in Bitcoin’s price, plunging to $63,000 as news broke that coordinated airstrikes by the United States and Israel had killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The selloff was immediate and aggressive. In a matter of hours, thousands of dollars evaporated from Bitcoin’s valuation as market participants scrambled to process the unprecedented geopolitical development.
Confirmation came through Iranian state-controlled media outlets. The Supreme National Security Council of Iran released a statement indicating Khamenei was killed while at his office location.
President Donald Trump acknowledged the strike through a Truth Social post, describing Khamenei as “one of the most evil people in history.”
The airstrikes also claimed the lives of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and the secretary of the Defense Council.
Following official confirmation, Bitcoin’s trajectory reversed dramatically. By the early hours of Sunday, BTC had surged back to $68,200 on the Coinbase exchange.
This represented an extraordinary $5,000 price movement within a single day, translating to approximately $80 billion in market capitalization fluctuation.
The volatility triggered widespread liquidations across leveraged trading positions. Data from CoinGlass indicates approximately 157,000 traders saw their positions forcibly closed during this 24-hour window, with aggregate liquidations hitting $657 million — distributed almost equally between bullish and bearish leveraged bets.
Market analyst Ash Crypto suggested that traders reinterpreted Khamenei’s assassination as potentially signaling an endpoint to U.S.-Iran hostilities, triggering the rapid price recovery.
Ethereum regained ground approaching the $2,000 threshold, while XRP stabilized near $1.40, demonstrating how the broader cryptocurrency market tracked Bitcoin’s volatility.
Bitcoin’s Sunday recovery restored prices to Friday’s levels, though the asset continues trading within a three-week consolidation range.
The weekend bounce notwithstanding, February proved disastrous for Bitcoin, closing down approximately 15% — marking the third-worst February performance in its entire history.
This represented only the fourth negative February since 2013. The worst February on record occurred in 2014, when Bitcoin crashed 31%.
Year-to-date performance is equally concerning, with BTC tracking toward its weakest first quarter since 2018, having declined roughly 23% since January 1.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have initiated retaliatory military operations against nations providing bases for U.S. forces, and reports confirm at least one fatality following a counter-strike on Israeli territory.
Constitutionally, Iran will now be governed by an interim council comprising the president, judiciary chief, and a Guardian Council representative until the Assembly of Experts selects a permanent successor.
As of this writing, BTC trades near $67,350, with analysts focusing on Sunday’s opening of oil and equity futures markets as the next critical indicator for whether cryptocurrency’s recovery momentum can be sustained.
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