BTC/USD: Bitcoin Jumps 6% as Fears Fade After Record $19 Billion in Liquidations
Big liquidity crunch wiped out about 1.6 million traders on Friday. Only for Trump to walk back his comments like it was no big deal. 💥 Worst-Ever Liquidation EventThe crypto market witnessed one of its worst-ever liquidations on Friday as $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out. Over 1.6 million traders got margin-called in a single trading day. The number easily dwarfs the $1.6 billion seen during FTX’s collapse. The chaos started after President Donald Trump announced , triggering panic across risk assets. Within 30 minutes, Bitcoin plunged more than 10% to dive below $105,000. Ethereum dropped more than 12% to around $3,500. It was a textbook “dump everything” liquidation cascade — long positions getting margin-called, triggering sell-offs, which triggered more margin calls. The domino effect was brutal, fast, and painful. 🩴 Trump Flip-FlopsFast-forward to Sunday: Trump did what he’s done plenty of times already as far as tariffs are concerned — reversed course. “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” he posted, adding that President Xi “just had a bad moment.” The market wasted no time responding. Bitcoin rebounded 6% Monday morning to trade near $115,000, while Ethereum surged 20% to $4,200. Traders who survived Friday’s liquidity crunch were quick to jump back in. The bruising slump and subsequent rebound shows just how sensitive crypto remains to macro headlines — especially when those headlines come from the US President’s social media account. 🕵️‍♂️ Insider Trading?Digging deeper, on-chain data has sparked suspicious chatter. Several whale wallets reportedly opened large leveraged short positions minutes before Trump’s tariff announcement, reaping hundreds of millions in profits. At least two trading accounts were in the spotlight, one turning a profit of $192 million by shorting Bitcoin and the other one pocketing $89 million by shorting Ethereum. That’s fueling speculation about insider trading or advance leaks — something the crypto community has seen before, though rarely on this scale. While no wrongdoing has been proven, the timing has traders calling for closer monitoring of large on-chain movements tied to political events. Still, keep a healthy dose of skepticism as tariff wars and other geopolitical events can throw more uncertainty into the market.