Crypto Market Sees $300M Liquidations as Trump Tariff Threats Flush Late Bulls

Crypto traders betting on a steady bitcoin BTC$89,467.50 rally got a sharp reminder of headline risk from Donald Trump's latest tariff threats.

Over $300 million worth of leveraged derivatives positions were liquidated across centralized exchanges in the past four hours, according to CoinGlass data, as crypto prices plunged following the news.

Nearly all liquidations came from long positions—traders betting on higher prices. BTC longs accounted for $107 million of the total, while Ethereum's ether ETH$3,046.96 followed with close to $87 million. Other tokens, including Solana's SOL SOL$132.33, dogecoin DOGE$0.1399, and SUI SUI$1.5559 saw liquidations ranging between $10 million and $18 million.

"Nice aggregate flush of long leverage and de-risk selling from spot," well-followed crypto trader Skew noted in an X post early Friday. "All driven by headlines once again."

The sell-off came after Trump proposed a 50% tariff on imports from the European Union starting next month, along with a 25% tariff on iPhones manufactured outside the U.S., reigniting fears of an escalating trade war.

As a result, BTC and major altcoins such as Ether ETH$3,046.96, XRP XRP$2.0351, and Cardano ADA$0.4127 fell 3% to 4%, while smaller-cap tokens like Uniswap UNI$5.5700 and SUI SUI$1.5559 dropped 5% to 7% over the past 24 hours.

Crypto trader named James Wynn, who gained attention recently opening a $1.1 billion BTC long bet with 40x leverage on the Hyperliquid exchange, also slipped underwater on the massive position. Currently, the trader is sitting on $7.5 million of unrealized losses, and the position could be liquidated if BTC slips to $102,000, according to a screenshot shared on X.

Interestingly, the long liquidations came amid a recent unusual tilt toward short positions in BTC derivatives despite record prices, CoinDesk reported on Thursday.

Read more: Why Are Bitcoin Traders Aggressively Shorting as BTC Hits New Record High?