Trump Shakes Up The Crypto Market: $509 Million Liquidated In 24 Hours!

A simple political speech can sometimes shake the entire crypto market. This Tuesday, an announcement from Donald Trump regarding new tariff increases triggered a wave of liquidations exceeding 500 million dollars. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana plummeted within a few hours, revealing the market’s fragility in the face of geopolitical tensions. While leveraged traders were racking up losses, some institutions discreetly took the opportunity to bolster their positions.

Trump’s announcements trigger a collapse in the crypto market

Hours after Donald Trump announced new protectionist measures targeting Chinese imports, the crypto market staggered violently. The impact was immediate. According to data from Coinglass, over 509 million dollars in positions were liquidated within 24 hours, affecting 94,071 traders.

Bitcoin (BTC), at the forefront, briefly saw its price drop below 84,000 dollars. By comparison, it was still trading above 87,000 dollars just a few hours earlier. The massive liquidation mainly affected short positions, with 25.19 million dollars lost in this segment, compared to only 443,490 dollars for long positions.

This imbalance indicates that most traders were betting on a more pronounced decline in the market, a bet that loses to poorly anticipated volatility.

Such a market move was accompanied by a series of indicators that reflect a violent domino effect correction. Here are the main important facts noted on April 2, 2025:

• 509 million dollars liquidated across the entire crypto market, according to consolidated data from Coinglass.
• 94,071 traders impacted by these liquidations, mainly in the derivatives markets;
• The price of BTC dropped in a range between 82,263 $ and 83,487 $, before stabilizing around 83,500 $.
• The 24-hour trading volume was established at 27.45 billion dollars, slightly up despite the panic.
• Liquidations on bitcoin reached 25.64 million dollars, of which 25.19 million were in short positions, revealing an excess of pessimism among leveraged traders.

These data confirm that the market reaction was brutal but primarily mechanical, driven by leverage effects and forced liquidations. At this stage, no technical or fundamental announcement regarding the concerned protocols (bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana) has justified such a foundational movement, reinforcing the hypothesis of exogenous stress caused by Trump’s tariff announcement.

Tether and Metaplanet discreetly accumulate bitcoin

While the markets displayed extreme volatility, some institutional players took the opportunity to methodically strengthen their positions in bitcoin. On April 1^st, the Tether company, issuer of the USDT stablecoin, revealed it had acquired 8,888 BTC during the first quarter of 2025.

In its statement, the company indicated that it now holds nearly 7.8 billion dollars in bitcoin. At the same time, listed Japanese firm Metaplanet announced via a post on X that it purchased an additional 696 BTC, bringing its reserves to 4,046 BTC. The announcements, made during the correction, starkly contrast with the general market sentiment and demonstrate a long-term strategic reading by these players.

These massive purchases occurred even as bitcoin’s market capitalization slightly rebounded to reach 1.69 trillion dollars, with a dominance of 62.37%, a very slight decrease. The 24-hour trading volume, meanwhile, progressed by 0.37%, amounting to 27.45 billion dollars, suggesting a return of liquidity after the initial shock. With this counter-current positioning, Tether and Metaplanet send a clear message to the markets: the fundamentals of bitcoin remain solid, even in a tense geopolitical context.

This dynamic raises a crucial question: should we see these movements as a simple opportunistic accumulation strategy or a signal of renewed confidence from institutional investors in cryptos? In the short term, selling pressure could still generate volatility, especially if other political tensions emerge. However, in the medium and long term, these positions could play a stabilizing role in the market and support a recovery toward 90,000 dollars, according to some analysts.