Bitcoin, Ethereum Bulls Get Rekt: Liquidations Top $1.1 Billion as Prices Fall After Trump Meets Xi

The price of Bitcoin slid on Thursday, bringing major coins and tokens with it, after U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. 

Bitcoin dropped below $108,000 and was recently trading 4% lower over a 24-hour period, according to CoinGecko. 

The leading digital coin broke a new record of $126,080 at the beginning of the month—dubbed “Uptober” by observers for the historically big crypto and stock market gains—but it’s now nearly 15% below that level. 

Meanwhile, Ethereum—the second-biggest digital coin—slid by 5% over a 24-hour period; the asset was recently priced at a little over $3,782. 

Other top coins by market capitalization—Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin—were all trading lower by 6%, with altcoins taking an even harder hit than Bitcoin.

Liquidations over the past day in the crypto futures market also soared to more than $1.1 billion, the vast majority being positions betting on the future price of Bitcoin and Ethereum to go up. Nearly $500 million of the liquidations came from Bitcoin alone, with Ethereum adding more than $250 million to the pile.

The sell-off comes after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday hinted that the U.S. central bank may not cut interest rates again this year. Bitcoin, crypto, and stocks have typically performed well in a low-interest rate environment, and the Fed has cut rates at the last two meetings.

“The market was expecting a green light to go risk-on. Instead, Powell said that further cuts are not a ‘foregone conclusion’ and the Xi-Trump meeting did not produce any concrete results or certainty,” Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at crypto-focused financial services and advisory firm FRNT Financial, told Decrypt.

“So this is the market reacting to these short-term mixed signals,” he continued, “and it’s likely that shorter-term-minded investors are adjusting their positions after not receiving the green light they expected.”

Amberdata’s Director of Derivatives, Greg Magadini, echoed Savic’s comments. “I think the world is positioned long across the board going into [Trump’s talk with Xi] and the Fed meeting,” he said. “Now it’s like, ‘What’s the next reason for markets to go higher?’—so a sell-off makes sense to me.”

President Trump’s trade war with China and other countries has rocked markets since he took office in January. Despite being a crypto-friendly leader, his unexpected tariff announcements have often led to the price of Bitcoin and “risk-on” assets like tech stocks to drop hard. 

But even after softening tariffs on China following a meeting in South Korea with China’s Xi, markets seem unimpressed. President Trump called the meeting “truly great” and “amazing” and agreed to lower tariffs by 10% on the country, but U.S. stock indices were trading lower on Thursday morning New York time.