Trump's Tariffs Spark Crypto Bloodbath, $10B in Liquidations

President Trump's tariff announcements over the weekend sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency and financial markets, triggering historic liquidations and significant volatility. On Saturday, Trump revealed via Truth Social that he had imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% tariff on China. This news led to a sharp downturn in digital assets, with Bitcoin (BTC) losing the $102,000 level and plunging as low as $92,776 on Coinbase.

Crypto data aggregator Coinglass reported over $2.27 billion in liquidations, primarily from traders with leveraged long Bitcoin positions. However, ByBit CEO Ben Zhou disputed these figures, suggesting the real amount of liquidations was up to four times higher. Zhou revealed that over $2 billion was liquidated on ByBit alone, indicating that Coinglass's numbers were inaccurate due to limitations in the APIs that feed liquidation data. Zhou estimated that the total liquidation amount was at least around $8-10 billion.

Following the market reaction to the tariff news, Trump announced that after a "friendly" conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, they agreed to postpone the tariffs for one month to allow for negotiations. Sheinbaum confirmed the conversation and that Mexico also agreed to send 10,000 troops to the Southern border to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl into the US. Trump is also reportedly set to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Markets have since recovered slightly, with BTC nearly retagging the $100,000 level and the major stock indices only down marginally compared to Friday's close. However, most altcoins are still down big from their all-time highs and struggling to gain momentum. The impact of Trump's tariffs on the cryptocurrency and financial markets remains to be seen, as negotiations between the US and its trade partners continue.