Cryptocurrency market traders took a huge hit on both sides on Monday afternoon, with more than $400 million in long and short positions liquidated in the past four hours.
Bitcoin surged from $67,500 to over $71,200 on Monday afternoon after U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he had directed the Pentagon to postpone all attacks on Iranian power plants for five days and said the U.S. and Iran were having a “very good and productive conversation.”
Iran reportedly subsequently denied everything.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing anonymous sources, that there was “no direct or indirect communication with Trump,” adding that Trump “withdrew after hearing that our target would be all power plants in West Asia.” Bitcoin fell back around $1,200 from its highs in a matter of minutes.
CoinGlass data shows that in the four-hour window surrounding the two headlines, $415 million was liquidated, with $280 million in short liquidations and $135 million in long liquidations. The nearly 2-to-1 ratio suggests that the market was in a state of serious escalation when Trump’s post landed.
Of the total liquidations, Bitcoin accounted for $140 million, Ethereum accounted for $120 million, and Hyperliquid’s Brent oil futures accounted for $64 million. Tokenized gold lost $20.9 million and tokenized silver lost $19.8 million
Meanwhile, the oil reckoning has been almost entirely one-sided.
XYZ:BRENTOIL saw $64.4 million wiped off its Hyperliquid contract, the vast majority of which were bulls who had been preparing for Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to trigger an attack on Iranian power plants rather than delay it. These traders were right about the direction of the war, but wrong about the direction of the next Truth Society post.
Bitcoin prices hovered between $67,500 and $68,500 during the Asian session, surging by $3,700 in the hour after Trump’s post before falling by $1,200 on Iran’s denials.
As of Monday evening, the index was steady at $70,000, up 2.3% on the day and in the middle of a range driven by several hours of headline news.
The session reinforced what Binance futures and spot data showed earlier this month. When derivatives dominate trading activity at five times the volume of spot trading, every headline is amplified through a two-way liquidation cascade. The bears got squeezed on the downgrade posts, and then the bulls were caught when the counter-headlines arrived.
The net movement ended up being modest, but the damage to leveraged traders was not.
