President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs on China triggered a massive sell-off in the cryptocurrency market, wiping out over $500 billion as total market capitalisation fell from $4.25 trillion to below $3.75 trillion.

Bitcoin led the decline, briefly dropping to $109,683—a near 10 per cent loss in 24 hours.

Ethereum slid from an intraday high of $4,386 to $3,574 by 5:21 p.m. EST, while XRP tumbled to $1.58, its lowest level since November 29, 2024.

The turmoil wiped out positions for over 1.42 million traders, destroying more than $9.45 billion in leveraged long and short bets.

As of 6:21 p.m. EST, $6.87 billion in leveraged positions had vanished in just one hour, with liquidated long positions making up $5.56 billion of the total.

In the past 24 hours, over $9 billion has been liquidated from the crypto market, including $7.5 billion in long positions and $1.5 billion in short positions.

Around 1.4 million traders saw their positions wiped out during the period, with HTX recording the largest single liquidation — an $87.53 million BTC/USDT trade.

At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $113,553.35, down 6.64 per cent in the past 24 hours.

Ethereum slipped 10.79 per cent to $3,896.53, while XRP dropped 17.15 per cent to $2.32.

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalisation declined by roughly 13 per cent in a day, standing at $3.59 trillion at press time.