Bitcoin Plunges Under $104,000 As US-China Trade Tensions Resurface

Crypto markets are poised to close the week firmly in the red as renewed trade tensions between the U.S. and China weigh on investor sentiment.

Early on Friday, U.S. President Trump accused China of violating the current trade agreement between the two countries in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Combined with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s admission on Thursday that trade talks are “a bit stalled,” fears of a drawn-out trade war sparked a selloff across global markets.

Bitcoin slipped below $104,000, a 3% decline over the past 24 hours, while ETH and XRP dropped by 4% during the same period. Meanwhile, SOL plunged 6% to $159.

The overall crypto market capitalization dipped 4.5% to $3.4 trillion, according to Coingecko.

Almost all of the Top 100 digital assets posted losses, with Cronos (CRO) and Hyperliquid (HYPE) being the only non-stablecoin tokens to eke out minor gains of 5% and 2%, respectively.

Meanwhile, Ethena (ENA), FARTCOIN and Arbitrum (ARB) are today’s biggest losers, down around 15%.

Around 271,000 leveraged traders were liquidated for a total of $844 million in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin accounted for $247 million, while ETH made up $122 million.

One of the casualties was Hyperliquid whale James Wynn, who drew attention recently for his highly leveraged bets on Bitcoin. According to HyperDash, the trader lost over $88 million over the past week.