October got off to a hot start, but the historically strong month for Bitcoin and crypto prices—called “Uptober” by many investors—hit a roadblock Friday thanks to President Trump’s trade war. And now prices are falling fast as liquidations pile up.
More than $1 billion worth of crypto positions have been liquidated over the last 24 hours, per data from CoinGlass, as crypto prices plunge alongside stocks following Trump’s Friday morning declaration that “massive” tariffs against China are in the works.
Bitcoin plunged from a price above $122,000 Friday morning to about $116,200 recently, down 4% on the day, while Ethereum has fallen almost 8% to about $3,975 and Solana has dipped over 7% on the day to $205.
With those declines, Bitcoin has nearly erased all of its October gains, returning to a price last seen on October 1, while Ethereum and Solana both hit October lows on Friday per data from CoinGecko.
October has historically been a particularly strong month for Bitcoin’s price—a longstanding pattern that has led much of the crypto industry to expect the same results come every fall. The trend at first seemed poised to continue this year; the first week of this month, BTC surged some 10.5% to a new all-time high price north of $126,000.
But this week, those gains started to fall off. And on Friday, they were nearly entirely erased after President Trump announced he was calling off a planned meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, ordering a “massive increase” of tariffs on Chinese goods entering the United States, in a move even he conceded could be “potentially painful” for Americans.
Trump’s sharp words also spooked the stock market. The Nasdaq is deep in the red Friday, down about 3.5%, while the S&P 500 has fallen about 2.7%. The Dow is down 1.9%.
But perhaps the most impacted asset of the day is Trump’s own crypto token. WLFI, the native token of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto platform, plummeted over 17% immediately following the president’s China announcement, to just north of $0.14 a token. It has since partially recovered to $0.16.
Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/343866/red-uptober-liquidations-1-billion-bitcoin-ethereum-solana-erase-gains
