Bitcoin crashes to $86,000, triggers $1.6 billion liquidation in 24 hours

Bitcoin’s drop to $86,000 led to the liquidation of $1.6 billion in trading positions over the past 24 hours, according to Coinglass data.

The drop is attributed to President Donald Trump’s renewed tariff threats against Mexico and Canada and a significant selloff of Bitcoin ETFs.

A $500 million Bitcoin ETF selloff intensified the market downturn, leading to widespread liquidations across major digital assets. The price decline marks Bitcoin’s first drop below $86,000 since November.

Feb 25 Update:

10 #Bitcoin ETFs
NetFlow: -5,474 $BTC(-$485.98M)🔴#Fidelity outflows 2,620 $BTC($232.58M) and currently holds 204,180 $BTC($18.13B).

9 #Ethereum ETFs
NetFlow: -4,109 $ETH(-$9.91M)🔴#Bitwise outflows 3,658 $ETH($8.83M) and currently holds 98,642 $ETH($238M).… pic.twitter.com/iNdwSiZIsA

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 25, 2025

The liquidation event affected between 286,534 and 367,789 traders, with long positions bearing the majority of losses ranging from $144 million to $1.4 billion.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP were among the most impacted digital assets.

This event follows a larger liquidation on February 3, 2025, when over $2.2 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out, affecting approximately 729,073 traders.

During that event, Ethereum traders experienced over $600 million in losses, while Bitcoin traders faced $409 million in liquidations.

Trump’s latest statements on trade policy, which revived discussions from his February 3 announcement, have heightened concerns about economic disruptions.

The combination of trade policy uncertainty and institutional investor outflows has contributed to increased volatility across crypto markets.

This article first appeared at Crypto Briefing