Crypto got hit hard. Over the weekend, Bitcoin and Ethereum both took serious damage after the US launched airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Markets panicked. Billions vanished almost instantly.
Bitcoin dropped 2.8% to $72,845 by Saturday morning. That sounds bad enough, but it gets worse. The coin had already slipped from a March high near $76,000 before the strikes even happened. Then the news hit, and roughly $128 billion in total market cap evaporated almost immediately. Bitcoin had briefly touched $82,000 before sellers piled in hard, pushing it down 3.2%. Ceasefire talks didn’t help. Nobody cared.
$128 billion in market cap vanished almost immediately. Ceasefire talks didn’t help. Nobody cared.
Ethereum had an even rougher time. It plunged 9% to $1,986.62, falling below the psychologically important $2,000 level. That’s not a small thing. Ethereum broke through its 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day EMAs all at once, which technical analysts basically treat as a flashing red light. At one point the token was trading at $1,867 after President Trump announced combat operations. That’s nearly a 5% loss in just 24 hours.
Ethereum’s intra-day low had already hit $2,200 earlier in the Asian session on Sunday, its lowest point since May 9.
So why did everything fall apart so fast? Geopolitics, mostly. US strikes on Iran’s three main nuclear sites triggered immediate fear about oil supply disruptions and inflation. Investors moved out of speculative assets. Fast. Institutional selling added pressure on Bitcoin, and spot ETF outflows made things worse for both coins. When traditional markets panic, crypto tends to follow. That correlation showed up hard this weekend.
XRP, notably, didn’t fall apart the same way. It edged lower within its existing bearish trend but showed what analysts called relative resilience. No dramatic crash. Just a quiet slide downward while everything around it was burning. That’s not exactly a victory lap, but it’s something.
The total damage was significant. Beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, Ripple dropped 7.35% and Solana fell 6.53%. Some altcoins lost more than 9% in a single day. One report even noted Bitcoin’s value sinking to $64,081.42, down over 4% from the prior day. Different data points, same story. The whole market got rattled. Adding to the carnage, over $180 million was liquidated from the market in just 24 hours, with the majority of those positions coming from longs. Crude oil prices surged alongside the turmoil, with WTI topping $92 per barrel as traders priced in potential supply disruptions from the escalating Middle East conflict. Bitcoin’s standing as a safe haven asset has been called into question by this episode, as its price movements mirrored risk-off sentiment rather than the store-of-value behavior many institutional investors had anticipated.
This episode exposed something analysts keep repeating. Crypto isn’t some isolated universe anymore. When real-world crises escalate, digital assets move with everything else. Sometimes faster.
