The cryptocurrency market faced its sharpest sentiment decline in months after US President Donald Trump imposed a 100% tariff on China, triggering widespread panic. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index dropped to a “Fear” level of 27, down 37 points from Friday’s “Greed” reading of 64. Data from CoinGlass revealed over $19.37 billion in liquidations within 24 hours, with 1,670,078 traders wiped out. The market reaction followed a brief plunge in Bitcoin’s price to $102,000 on the Binance perpetual futures pair.

Record Liquidations Sweep Through the Market

The CoinGlass liquidation tracker showed the crypto market suffered massive losses across major tokens. Bitcoin led with $5.39 billion in liquidations, while Ethereum followed with $4.44 billion. Solana came next at $2.02 billion, and XRP and Dogecoin posted $709.57 million and $475.14 million, respectively.

Other altcoins combined lost about $1.52 billion, with HYPE contributing $890.73 million. Long positions suffered the most, with $16.85 billion liquidated, compared to $2.51 billion from short trades. Within one hour, $10.29 million in positions vanished, signaling extreme volatility. The largest single liquidation occurred on Hyperliquid, involving an ETH-USDT pair worth $203.36 million.

Analysts Point to Rare Contrarian Signal

In an X post, Andre Dragosch, Head of Research at Bitwise Europe, said the firm’s Intraday Sentiment Index flashed a strong contrarian buying signal. He wrote that the index “reached an intraday low of -2.8 standard deviations - its lowest since the ‘Yen Carry Trade Unwind’ in the summer of 2024.”  

This reading suggested extreme fear levels comparable to previous global risk-off events. The last time the Fear & Greed Index dropped this low was April 16, when Bitcoin sank to $77,000 amid rising trade tensions. A week earlier, on April 9, Trump had paused higher tariffs for 90 days, setting them back to a 10% baseline for most countries.

In the previous week, the Index was in the Greed category because on Monday the Bitcoin rose to new highs of 125,100. However, feelings quickly changed after Trump announced it, which indicates that geopolitics still have a strong influence on digital asset markets.

Bitcoin Plunges into Severe Soldoff as Market Cap Diminishes.

Bitcoin (BTC), as per CoinMarketCap, declined by 7.65% in 24 hours to an amount of 112, 245.74, with its market capitalization reducing by 7.68% to 2.23 trillion. It is worth fully diluted (FDV) $2.35 trillion.

It fell drastically by about 121,411 to around 112,000. In the meantime, the level of trading increased by 165.21 percent to reach $197.08 billion, which is a sign of high intensity of traders. The ratio of volume to market cap increased to 8.86% which indicated high liquidity pressure.

The circulating supply of Bitcoin stands at 19.93 million BTC of the possible 21 million, with a profile score of 100, indicating that despite the sharp decline, there is still an involvement of the investors.

In a Thinking Crypto podcast interview, Santiment analyst Brian Quinlivan noted that Bitcoin’s new all-time highs “didn’t generate the same level of enthusiasm on social media as previous highs.” He added, “It was like a modest, run-of-the-mill reaction from the crypto audience... not nearly as euphoric as before.”

Conclusion:

The crypto market faced one of its steepest downturns in months following President Trump’s 100% tariff on China. The move triggered $19.37 billion in liquidations, sending Bitcoin’s price below $112,000 and pushing the Crypto Fear & Greed Index to a six-month low. Analysts, however, point to a possible contrarian signal, suggesting extreme fear could present future buying opportunities if stability returns.

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