Bitcoin Drops 13% as Trump Tariffs, Putin Meeting Roil Crypto

The cryptocurrency sell-off began in earnest hours after last Friday’s market update, when President Trump threatened China with a new wave of tariffs, accusing Chinese authorities of lying. The announcement sent immediate shockwaves through digital asset markets, with Bitcoin dumping from above $120,000 to under $117,000 within hours. This initial decline opened what market participants described as ‘the gates of leveraged hell,’ triggering a cascade of forced position closures that ultimately resulted in a massive $19 billion wipeout across cryptocurrency derivatives markets.

The cascading effects of overleveraged positions being forcefully liquidated drove Bitcoin to a weekly low of $101,000 on Binance and several other major exchanges. Altcoins suffered even more devastating losses, with some extreme cases seeing declines of up to 99% as panic selling swept through the market. The situation stabilized somewhat during the weekend following reports that tensions between the US and China had de-escalated, allowing Bitcoin to mount a recovery that saw it climb to $116,000 by mid-week.

Bitcoin’s mid-week recovery to $116,000 proved short-lived as the asset faced immediate rejection at that level. While the $110,000 support level initially held against bearish pressure, the market faced renewed selling when President Trump met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, driving Bitcoin down to $108,500. The landscape worsened significantly over the past day, with another bloody Friday seeing Bitcoin initiate another leg down that took it to just under $104,000.

A brief bounce to over $106,000 occurred after Trump indicated the tariffs on China wouldn’t stand, but that momentum quickly faded, leaving Bitcoin trading around $105,000 as of press time. This price action resulted in weekly losses exceeding 13% for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Ethereum mirrored Bitcoin’s decline, falling 13.4% to $3,770, while XRP suffered more substantial losses of 19.5% to trade at $2.27.

The altcoin market experienced particularly severe damage, with major tokens including DOGE (-27%), ADA (-25%), LINK (-27%), XLM (-22%), and HYPE (-21.5%) all posting massive weekly declines. The overall cryptocurrency market cap settled at $3.650 trillion with 24-hour trading volume of $273 billion, while Bitcoin’s market dominance stood at 57.3%, indicating that while altcoins suffered disproportionately, Bitcoin remained the market’s anchor throughout the turbulence.

The extreme volatility triggered a dramatic shift in market sentiment, as measured by the Crypto Fear and Greed Index. The metric, which stood above 60 last week indicating a state of greed, tumbled to multi-month lows under 25 after the most recent correction, reflecting extreme fear among market participants. This sentiment shift occurred despite contrasting analyses of the actual damage inflicted during the crash.

While initial reports indicated $19 billion in liquidations during last week’s meltdown, some analysts contended these figures were highly exaggerated, claiming the actual value was just over $2.3 billion. Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode offered a more philosophical perspective, characterizing the event as a necessary reset for the Bitcoin market due to extremely high leverage used by some traders. The firm suggested the deleveraging event, while painful, served to remove excessive risk from the system.

The week also featured notable developments beyond the price action. Ripple Labs reportedly began leading a $1 billion fundraise for an XRP treasury through a SPAC, creating a digital asset treasury focused on accumulating its own token. Meanwhile, data emerged indicating that almost all Ethereum purchased by companies had been accumulated in Q3 2025 alone. Prominent Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff used the price correction to dismiss BTC’s ‘digital gold’ status, though his comments came against a backdrop of continued institutional interest in major digital assets.