More than $660 million in crypto positions were wiped out in a single 24-hour window after President Trump posted a stern warning to Iran on Truth Social, sending Bitcoin tumbling from $82,000 to a multi-week low of $76,650.
The mechanism behind this figure was not panic selling by ordinary holders; these were overleveraged long positions acting as a self-loading weapon, with geopolitical news pulling the trigger.
If you’ve never used margin trading and are wondering how one social media post wipes out two-thirds of a billion dollars in a matter of minutes, you’re asking exactly the right question. Here’s how it works, why it keeps happening, and what it means for your approach to crypto security.
$BTC fell below the $77,000 level.
The key support area is $75,000, which could be retested next.
After that, a rally is expected, especially due to a new CME gap around the $79,200 level. pic.twitter.com/smg5oCPmHf
– Ted (@TedPillows) May 18, 2026
Why did $677 million disappear so quickly with Bitcoin’s recent crash below $80,000?
Think of leverage like a mortgage, but for a transaction. One bank lets you buy a $300,000 house with $30,000 down; you control a large asset with a fraction of its true value. If the price of the house drops by 10%, you lose your entire down payment. The bank is not waiting for things to get worse; he pushes for a sale to get his money back first.
This is exactly how leverage works in crypto. Here’s what that means in simple terms: If you place $1,000 in a 10x leveraged long position in Bitcoin, you effectively control $10,000 worth of BTC. A 10% price drop doesn’t cost you $100; this wipes out your entire $1,000. The exchange automatically closes your position to protect itself. This forced closure is called a liquidation.
With 20x leverage, a 5% move against you ends your trade. At 50x, which some platforms allow, a 2% drop is enough. When Bitcoin fell approximately $5,000 from its high of $82,000, highly leveraged traders had no buffer to absorb the loss.
According to Coinglass data, Binance and OKX saw the highest liquidation volumes, pointing directly to retail traders using 10-100x leverage who were hit the hardest. More than $610 million, out of a total of $660 million in liquidations, was hit in just one to two hours after Trump’s arrival.
(SOURCE: CoinGlass)
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Why overleveraged long positions were the fuel, not just the victims
Here’s what surprises most newbies: the liquidations themselves made the Bitcoin crash worse. This was not a one-sided story in which prices fell and traders lost money. Losing trades actively pushed the price down.
When the first wave of leveraged long positions reached its liquidation price, exchanges automatically sold their Bitcoin, triggering large market sell-offs that instantly hit the order book. This selling pressure pushed the price down a little further.
This gradual decline pushed the next band of leveraged positions below their liquidation threshold, triggering another wave of forced selling. Then another. The waterfall is entirely algorithmic, no human emotion, no hesitation, just automatic execution, one layer triggering the next.
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Over the past 48 hours, Bitcoin has fallen from a range of $80,000-$82,000 to around $76.7k, triggering over $600 million in liquidations in the crypto market, mostly from long positions.
Ethereum fell below around $2.2k while altcoins even saw… pic.twitter.com/65prGQKzkB
— Shibarium | SHIB.IO (@Shibizens) May 18, 2026
This is why geopolitical headlines and cryptocurrency volatility are such a dangerous combination. The news provides the spark, but accumulated market leverage is the fuel. In the weeks leading up to this event, funding rates on major exchanges had turned significantly positive, a sign that the market was overheated and traders were betting on a further rise.
This positioning meant that any sharp decline would trigger a massive sell-off. Market commentators noted that funding rates and open interest rates became “frothy” with each Trump-Iran headline, turning any negative surprise into a cascade of forced selling for overleveraged long positions.
It wasn’t even the first time this cycle. On March 22, a similar ultimatum from Trump to Iran sent Bitcoin from around $75,900 to $68,000 in a matter of hours, triggering liquidations estimated at between $300 million and $1 billion, depending on the methodology used, with 85% of these liquidations affecting long positions. The pattern repeats itself because the structural setup, high leverage, and concentrated positioning continue to rebuild between headlines.
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The article $677 Million in Liquidation as Bitcoin Falls Below $80,000 appeared first on 99Bitcoins.
