Bitcoin touches $104K as Trump tariff pressures trigger over $10B in liquidations

Bitcoin temporarily slipped to $104,000 late Friday, its lowest point in ten months, after President Donald Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese exports and froze outbound shipments of critical tech software.

It was an 8.4% plunge, and it came during a historically turbulent trading session that rattled both global traditional markets and crypto exchanges.

Bitcoin’s sidekick, Ethereum of course took a hit too, falling 5.8% to $3,637, based on data from Binance. Trump’s tariff announcements followed China’s decision to limit exports of rare earth minerals, which are essential to chipmaking and basically every other tech hardware out there.

So the president once again pushed duties to 100% and declared an all-out export control on “any and all critical software,” though this is likely just another TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) trade moment.

As the standoff between the world’s two largest economies deepened, the S&P 500 slipped 2%, and the Dow lost nearly 1,000 points. Over on the Nasdaq, the sell-off wiped out Amazon’s gains for the year, bringing the stock now down 2% year-to-date.

Actually, Amazon, Nvidia and Tesla each plunged by around 5% on Friday, as tech’s megacaps lost $770 billion in market cap.

Meanwhile, shares of US rare earth miners were surging. MP Materials surged more than 8%, USA Rare Earth advanced about 5%, Energy Fuels gained more than 3%, and NioCorp Developments rose more than 5%.

Exchanges withstand record stress as liquidations hit billions

Just hours into the crash, crypto exchanges began experiencing heavy traffic and load spikes. But OKX CEO Star said everything held steady, telling reporters, “All operations ran smoothly across all regions, with every indicator reading normal.”

The Hyperliquid platform also stayed fully operational despite a flood of new orders, and confirmed there were no latency issues or outages.

Uniswap, the DeFi giant, clocked in nearly $9 billion in daily trading volume, well above average. Founder Hayden Adams commented, “This kind of volatility is exactly where DeFi shines. We had no stress, no downtime.” As centralized and decentralized exchanges ran hot, leveraged bets started getting wiped clean.

Data showed total liquidations topped $10.3 billion. Long positions suffered the most, losing $16.83 billion, compared to $2.49 billion on the short side. Bitcoin alone saw $5.38 billion in liquidations, with Ethereum following at $4.43 billion.

Solana and XRP got hit too, losing $2.01 billion and $708 million, respectively. One of the largest liquidation events came from a Hyperliquid user holding an ETH-USDT pair worth $203.36 million.

Bitcoin ETFs also bled. Spot funds reported $4.5 million in net outflows, with only BlackRock’s IBIT showing a net inflow. Meanwhile, Ethereum ETFs recorded a massive $175 million exit across all nine active funds. The biggest pullback came from BlackRock’s ETHA, which lost $80.19 million.

Whales gain big while Trump’s approval tanks amid shutdown

While most traders got wiped out, one large Hyperliquid whale reportedly shorted nine figures worth of BTC and ETH, walking away with a clean $190 million profit. On-chain analyst @mlmabc said the timing of the trade suggested the whale may have helped trigger the early morning price collapse.

Back in Washington, the pressure is also rising. Trump’s approval rating dropped again, hitting 40% in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, with 58% disapproving of his performance.

It got worse after he defended deploying militarized law enforcement units, a move that’s drawn criticism even from his own base. A separate HarrisX survey showed a slightly better 46% approval, still signaling deep national divides.

Adding to the chaos, the federal government shutdown stretched into its second week after lawmakers failed to pass spending bills before the October 1 deadline.

Trump blamed the gridlock on Democrats, promising to gut their programs in the next round of budget talks. On the Polymarket prediction platform, 86% of traders now expect the shutdown to drag past October 15, showing how little faith remains in any sort of resolution.

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