$660M Liquidated as Bitcoin Crashes on Trump-Iran Escalation Fears

The overall bearish trend that began following the rejection at $82,000 on Thursday evening worsened in the past 12 hours when another leg down drove BTC to a fresh multi-week low of $76,650 (on Bitstamp).

The most evident reason for this was the new set of threats from US President Donald Trump toward Iran. Even the reported deal between the US and China couldn’t save BTC.

New Threats

Although the ceasefire between the two sides was extended several weeks ago, there has been little to no progress on striking an actual and permanent peace deal. In fact, each proposal sent by Iran has been rejected by the Trump administration, with one of the latest deemed “totally unacceptable.”

He went further recently, indicating that the ceasefire is hanging by a thread, and returned his focus to the war after the trip to Beijing concluded. In a fresh post on Truth Social, Trump warned that Iran’s clock is ticking. He urged them to “better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” before adding that “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.”

This message came hours after the Times of Israel reported that Trump had met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to discuss the war developments.

As mentioned above, BTC slipped to just under $76,700 for the first time since the start of the month after a quiet Sunday. The liquidations rocketed to over $660 million on a 24-hour scale, while more than $610 million came in 1-2 hours when BTC and the rest of the market crashed after the aforementioned statement. Thus, the cryptocurrency is down by over $5,000 since the Thursday evening peak of $82,000.

BTCUSD May 18. Source: TradingView

US-China Deal

After Trump’s visit to Beijing concluded, the two sides published contradicting statements on whether they had reached any deals or not. The most recent, cited by The Kobeissi Letter, indicated that China had indeed agreed to several US demands, including an initial purchase of 200 American-made Boeing aircraft for local airlines, buying at least $17 billion per year of US agricultural products in 2026, 2027, and 2028, and more.