President Donald Trump’s threat to impose additional 100% tariffs on imports from China sparked a sell-off in cryptocurrencies late Friday, revealing risky leverage in the space.
Digital currencies Bitcoin, Ether and Solana were among the worst-hit cryptocurrencies, bringing total liquidations to $18.28 billion as of 3:47 p.m. ET, according to data analytics platform CoinGlass. Cryptocurrency losses come amid massive sell-offs, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 seeing their biggest declines in six months on Friday.
In the past 24 hours, about $5 billion worth of bitcoin was liquidated, along with about $4 billion worth of ether and about $2 billion worth of solana, according to CoinGlass.
This is the “largest liquidation event in crypto history,” CoinGlass said in an article on X.
Bitcoin is down nearly 10% over the past five days and was trading at $111,616.20 as of 3:45 p.m. ET, a jump from its fall to $103,000 as of 5:15 p.m. ET on Friday.
On Friday, ether was priced at $4,365.63, then fell to $3,742.88, a decline of 14.2%.
Solana was priced at $223.10 on Friday and fell to $178.72 as of 3:45 p.m. ET, a drop of almost 20%.
Crypto has made major strides since Trump took office this year, thanks in large part to the president’s turnaround from dismissing bitcoin as “based on nothing” and catering to crypto fans at conventions, launching his own coin and promising a strategic crypto reserve.
And Trump recently issued an executive order allowing digital assets such as crypto to be included in 401(k) plans, sending bitcoin to a record high of $124,000 last week.
Despite ongoing trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, trade tensions intensified on Thursday after China tightened export restrictions on key rare earth minerals.