Trump’s latest tariffs trigger record cryptocurrency liquidations

Crypto prices tumbled on Friday after Trump said he would impose an additional 100 per cent tariff on China and export controls on software. The declines precipitated – and then were made worse by – what data tracker Coinglass described as “the largest liquidation event in crypto history”.

While market weakness had already been present coming into Friday, Trump’s post sparked a more than 12 per cent decline in bitcoin. The largest token, which had earlier this week reached an all-time high of more than US$125,000, was hovering below US$113,000 as of Friday night in New York.

Over the past 24 hours, bets worth more than US$19 billion have been wiped out, and more than 1.6 million traders liquidated, according to Coinglass data. More than US$7 billion of those positions were sold in less than one hour of trading on Friday.

In its post on X, Coinglass said the total might be much higher given that exchanges do not necessarily report such orders in real time. Binance Holdings, which is the world’s largest crypto exchange, only reports one liquidation order per second, according to the post.

“The focus now turns to counterparty exposure and whether this triggers broader market contagion,” said Brian Strugats, head trader at Multicoin Capital. He added that some estimates place total liquidations above US$30 billion.