Bullish crypto bets lost over $500 million in the past 24 hours as traders took profits and markets slid following President Donald Trump’s fresh threats of tariffs on European imports and Apple products, sparking a wave of liquidations.

Bitcoin, which had been trading above $111,000, dropped quickly to around $108,600, wiping out intraday gains and rattling broader market sentiment.

BTC’s drop was mirrored across the crypto complex, with futures tracking ether (ETH), Solana’s SOL, xrp (XRP) and dogecoin (DOGE) showing losses from $30 million to over $100 million.

Bitcoin futures saw roughly $181 million in losses, while Ether futures accounted for nearly $142 million. Altcoins added another $100 million in liquidations, including notable wipeouts in SOL, DOGE, and XRP.

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The largest single liquidation was a $9.53 million BTC-USDT swap on OKX, CoinGlass data shows.

A liquidation occurs when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to the trader’s inability to meet the margin requirements.

Large-scale liquidations can indicate market extremes, like panic selling or buying. A cascade of liquidations might suggest a market turning point, where a price reversal could be imminent due to an overreaction in market sentiment.

The pullback arrived just as bitcoin was gaining momentum on ETF inflows and growing institutional interest, leading some to expect a calm weekend.

Instead, volatility returned in full force. With the macro environment now destabilized by renewed trade war fears, traders may remain cautious heading into next week’s sessions.

The crypto market turned red over the weekend, with Dogecoin (DOGE), Cardano’s ADA, and XRP each dropping over 7% as profit-taking set in after a strong week.

Bitcoin fell from a daily high of $111,200 to just over $107,000 on Friday, causing a swift change in sentiment. The drop came as President Donald Trump revived fears of a tariff war with the European Union — threatening a 50% levy as talks were “going nowhere.”

Market cap shed 5% and the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index tracking the largest tokens, fell 2.2% as traders moved to lock in gains amid rising volatility.

The move comes despite bitcoin touching fresh highs above $111,500 just days earlier, with ETF inflows, stablecoin legislation, and institutional buying supporting its rally. But those same tailwinds haven’t kept altcoins afloat in the short term.

“Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high also carries altcoins toward a bullish direction,” said Haiyang Ru, co-CEO of HashKey Group, said in a Telegram message. “But if BTC’s volatility picks up again, traders may rotate into regulated stablecoins — especially with new frameworks in the U.S. and Hong Kong easing that transition.”

Alex Kuptsikevich, chief analyst at FxPro, crypto sentiment recently hit levels last seen in January, just as BTC and ETH reached critical resistance zones. “Unlike previous BTCUSD rallies, the current movement is not just momentum-driven but backed by real demand and macro factors,” he noted.

Still, markets are showing signs of fatigue. Ethereum is struggling to break past its 200-day moving average near $2,650, while altcoins that previously surged — such as HYPE and EIGEN — are now cooling off after double-digit gains.

Analysts warn that if BTC doesn’t establish a new support zone, altcoin losses could deepen.

For now, the weekend pullback displays the fragility of rallies in low-liquidity conditions and the speed at which sentiment can turn.

Crypto stocks suffered a red day on Friday, especially bitcoin BTC treasury companies such as Strategy (MSTR) and Semler Scientific (SMLR) — each down roughly 6% even as bitcoin slipped only a bit more than 2%. Japan-listed Metaplanet is lower by 24%.

The picture looks even worse when zooming out: changing hands at $376 early Friday afternoon, MSTR shares are more than 30% below their all-time high hit late in 2024 even as bitcoin has pumped to a new record this week.

The price action comes amid a continuing debate taking place on social media about the sustainability of Michael Saylor’s (and those copycatting him) bitcoin-vacuuming playbook.

“Bitcoin treasury companies are all the rage this week. MSTR, Metaplanet, Twenty One, Nakamoto,” said modestly well-followed bitcoin twitter poster lowstrife. “I think they’re toxic leverage is the worst thing which has ever happened to bitcoin [and] what bitcoin stands for.”

The issue, according to lowstrife, is that the financial engineering that Strategy and other BTC treasury firms are employing to accumulate more bitcoin essentially rests on mNAV — a metric that compares a company’s valuation to its net asset value (in these cases, their bitcoin treasuries).

As long as their mNAV remains above 1.0, a given company can keep raising capital and buying more bitcoin, because investors are showing interest in paying a premium for exposure to the stock relative to the firm’s bitcoin holdings.

If mNAV dips below that level, however, it means the value of the company is even lower than the value of its holdings. This can create significant problems for a firm’s ability to raise capital and, say, pay dividends on some of the convertible notes or preferred stock it may have issued.

Shades of GBTC

Something similar happened to Grayscale’s bitcoin trust, GBTC, prior to its conversion into an ETF. A closed-end fund, GBTC during the bull market of 2020 and 2021 traded at an ever-growing premium to its net asset value as institutional investors sought quick exposure to bitcoin.

When prices turned south, however, that premium morphed into an abysmal discount, which contributed to a chain of blowups beginning with highly-leverage Three Arrows Capital and eventually spreading to FTX. The resultant selling pressure took bitcoin from a record high of $69,000 all the way down to $15,000 in just one year.

“Just like GBTC back in the day, the entire game now — the whole thing — is figuring out how much more BTC these access vehicles will scoop up, and when they will blow up and spit it all back out again,” Nic Carter, partner at Castle Island Ventures, posted in response to lowstrife’s thread.

The thread also triggered replies from MSTR bulls, among them Adam Back, Bitcoin OG and CEO of Blockstream.

“If mNAV < 1.0 they can sell BTC and buy back MSTR and increase BTC/share that way, which is in share-holder interests,” he posted. “Or people see that coming and don’t let it go there. Either way this is fine.»