The crypto market could not withstand new US strikes on Iran. News from the Strait of Hormuz area quickly pushed buyers out of their positions, and market liquidations almost reached $1 billion.
For the first time in several months, bitcoin dropped below $73,000. During Asian trading, BTC fell to $72,912, then hovered around $72,978. In 24 hours, the coin lost 3.4%, and up to 6.3% over the week.
Ethereum fell by 4.2% to $1,976, losing the $2,000 level again. Over the week, ETH is already down by 7.7%.
Strong pressure also affected other major coins:
- Solana fell by 3.5% to $80.57;
- XRP lost 3.6% to $1.28;
- Dogecoin dropped by 3.2% to $0.0979.
Among major assets, only Hyperliquid managed to stay in the green for the week. Even after a 4.5% drop in a day, Hyperliquid is still up about 2.4% for the week.
TRON also remains in the green zone for now, around +1.9% over the past seven days, even though the rest of the market has dropped significantly.
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The movement hit leveraged traders the hardest. According to CoinGlass, in 24 hours, 167,706 people were liquidated, and the total volume of forcibly closed positions approached $958.8 million.
The main share was in longs, about $897 million. Short positions lost about $61 million.
Most liquidations were in bitcoin, about $386 million. Next was Ethereum with $246 million. The largest single liquidation occurred on Hyperliquid, where a BTC position of $15.34 million was closed.
Traders lost nearly $1 billion after bitcoin fell below $73,000. Source: CoinGlass.
About 93% of liquidations were in long positions. This usually happens when the market is too confident in continued growth and then gets a sharp reversal. All the leverage traders accumulated during the calm sideways movement in mid-May was wiped out in just a few hours.
Once again, news from the Middle East triggered the sell-off. The US Central Command US reported strikes on an Iranian military facility near the Strait of Hormuz. US military also said they destroyed four Iranian drones flying toward a commercial vessel.
Washington called the operation defensive. According to an American official, the goal was to prevent the breakdown of the ceasefire that has been in effect since last month.
At the same time, the US Treasury US imposed new sanctions against the Iranian Persian Gulf Strait Authority. US authorities claim that the Persian Gulf Strait Authority used its position to pressure ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
After the strikes, the situation began to escalate rapidly. Iran struck an American airbase, from which, according to media citing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, planes took off for the attack.
Tensions also affected neighboring countries. In Kuwait there were reports of threats of missile strikes and drone attacks. Local military explained that the sounds of explosions in the country were related to air defense systems in operation.
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Later, Donald Trump stated that the Strait of Hormuz should not be under the control of any one country.
“These are international waters. The strait will remain open to everyone,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting at the White House, adding that the US will monitor the situation.
After the new strikes, not only crypto started to sell off. The pressure quickly spread to other markets: MSCI All Country World Index fell by 0.4% after a recent record, Asian stocks dropped by about 1.7%, and futures for S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 also went down.
Oil moved in the opposite direction. Traders are once again pricing in the risk that reaching an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz will be harder than the market expected just a few days ago.
The situation showed how quickly the market abandoned its recent optimism about the ceasefire. In recent weeks, the crypto market had reacted relatively calmly to news about Iran, and bitcoin stayed above $74,000 even despite weakening demand for ETF.
However, the new strikes broke this level, and the scale of liquidations showed that too many traders were confident in the market’s continued recovery.
