Crypto Markets Plunge Amid Global Trade Tensions, $1.5B Liquidated

The cryptocurrency market plunged on Monday, with over $1.5 billion in liquidations, as President Donald Trump’s reciprocal trade tariffs spook investors worldwide.

Bitcoin has dropped nearly 5% in the past 24 hours, trading at $78,370 —approximately 28% below its all-time high of $108,000 just three months ago. Ethereum’s Ether fell 11.6% to $1,549, while XRP declined 8.5% to $1.88. Solana’s SOL plummeted 7.7% to $106.

Meanwhile, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell by 7.5% in the past 24 hours, dropping to $2.58 trillion, according to CoinGecko. During the same period, leveraged positions worth $1.55 billion were liquidated across 464,327 traders.

Bitcoin accounted for nearly $506 million of the total, followed by Ethereum with $428 million, according to Coinglass. This marks one of the largest 24-hour liquidation events since February 2, when total liquidations reached $2.4 billion.

“A Huge Mistake”

“The US economy is barrelling rapidly towards recession, and will probably end up taking most of the rest of the world with it,” said Michael Brown, a Senior Research Strategist at Pepperstone. “Concurrently, inflation is going to ramp substantially higher for the next couple of quarters, at the very least. Here we are then – stagflation.”

Brown explained that tariffs are at the root cause of all this, callingTrump’s ‘Liberation Day’ “one of the biggest, and most obvious, policy mistakes of the last few decades.”

“Not only were the ‘reciprocal’ tariffs calculated in a way that defies all logic, as well as being at the hawkish end of market expectations, they are nothing but bad news, creating higher prices for the US consumer, and higher costs for US businesses,” he added.

Trump’s Tariffs

The market turmoil follows renewed trade tensions after Trump imposed “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2. The tariffs target countries that he claims have taken advantage of the United States.

The policy includes a 10% baseline tariff on all imports, with higher tariffs on specific countries: 34% on China, 20% on the European Union, 46% on Vietnam, and 32% on Taiwan.