Bitcoin Crashes to $63,000 as US and Israel Strike Iran: $515 Million in Crypto Liquidated

What to Know

• Bitcoin crashed from approximately $65,500 to a low of $63,038 on Saturday, February 28, 2026, after the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes on Iran.
• The drop represents a loss of nearly 5% in under an hour, erasing most of the week’s fragile recovery and hitting Bitcoin’s lowest level since the February 5 crash.
• Ethereum fell 4.5% to approximately $1,835, while Solana slid 4%, XRP dropped 2.5%, and virtually every major altcoin registered sharp losses.
• According to CoinGlass data, approximately $515 million in leveraged positions were liquidated across crypto markets within 24 hours, with 152,275 individual traders losing their positions.
• The largest single liquidation was a $11.17 million BTCUSDT position on the Aster exchange, representing one of the biggest individual wipeouts of the month.
• Roughly $128 billion in combined crypto market capitalization was erased in the immediate aftermath of the news breaking, according to CoinGecko.
• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a nationwide state of emergency, while U.S. President Trump announced the U.S. had commenced “major combat operations” against Iran to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
• Bitcoin’s 24/7 trading makes it one of the only large, liquid assets traders can sell on weekends when equity and bond markets are closed — a role it has repeatedly played during geopolitical crises.
• Traders on Deribit are aggressively buying put options at $60,000 and $55,000 strikes expiring in six to twelve months, indicating institutional players are positioning for further downside.

The Attack That Rattled Every Market That Was Open

Saturday morning, February 28, 2026 will be remembered as one of the most dramatic geopolitical weekends in recent memory — and for crypto traders, it will be remembered as yet another painful reminder that Bitcoin is not yet a safe haven. In the early morning hours, reports began emerging of explosions across Iran as the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against Iranian targets. U.S. President Donald Trump subsequently confirmed that America had commenced “major combat operations” against Iran, citing missile threats and nuclear proliferation concerns. The strikes followed weeks of escalating military buildup in the Persian Gulf region and the complete breakdown of nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

The geopolitical shockwave that followed was instant and severe. But unlike every other major asset class — stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies — cryptocurrency markets did not close for the weekend. They never do. And so, as investors around the world woke up to the news of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and scrambled for their phones on a Saturday morning, the first financial market they could access to express their panic was crypto. Bitcoin (BTC) absorbed the full force of that selling pressure in real time, plunging from approximately $65,500 to a low of $63,038 within a matter of hours. The move wiped nearly 5% from Bitcoin’s value and sent Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, and virtually every significant altcoin into sharp declines alongside it.

The crypto market’s unique vulnerability during weekends has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout 2025 and 2026. Equities, treasuries, and the foreign exchange markets are all closed on Saturdays and Sundays, meaning that when significant geopolitical or macroeconomic events unfold outside trading hours, professional investors and fund managers who need to reduce their risk exposure have limited options. Bitcoin and the broader crypto ecosystem — trading around the clock, seven days a week, with deep enough liquidity to absorb large institutional orders — function as one of the only available release valves for risk-off sentiment when conventional markets are unavailable. The result is that crypto frequently takes disproportionately large damage during weekend geopolitical shocks, even when the events themselves have limited direct connection to the digital asset industry.

The Scale of the Devastation: $515 Million Gone in Hours

The numbers that emerged from derivatives analytics provider CoinGlass painted a vivid picture of the carnage that unfolded in real time as news of the Iran strikes spread across trading desks worldwide. Total crypto liquidations across all venues reached approximately $515 million over the 24-hour period, with 152,275 individual traders losing their leveraged positions entirely as margin calls swept through the market. The largest single forced liquidation was a staggering $11.17 million BTCUSDT trade on the Aster exchange — a number that illustrates the scale of leveraged exposure that had been rebuilt during the brief midweek recovery rally.

The data from CoinGlass regarding the specific composition of those liquidations also tells an important story. Bitcoin futures liquidations totaled approximately $192.4 million, with futures trading volume surging to roughly $68.27 billion against spot volume of just $7.02 billion — a ratio that confirms the selloff was being dramatically amplified by derivatives market mechanics rather than driven by organic spot selling. This pattern is consistent with what market analysts describe as a “cascade liquidation” dynamic: as prices fall, leveraged long positions are automatically liquidated; those liquidations create additional selling pressure that pushes prices further down; lower prices then trigger the next wave of margin calls; and the cycle continues until prices find a level where buying demand is sufficient to arrest the decline.

Ethereum’s derivatives picture was similarly alarming. According to CoinGlass data, ETH experienced approximately $149.14 million in futures liquidations with open interest declining to roughly $23.6 billion. The ratio of futures to spot volume for Ethereum was even more extreme than Bitcoin’s, with more than $51.8 billion in futures turnover against just $3.59 billion in spot trading — a figure that underscores just how much of Ethereum’s price action is currently being driven by leveraged speculation rather than fundamental investment demand. Iran-related news has historically been one of the triggers that activates this kind of leverage-driven volatility in crypto markets, and Saturday’s events followed that well-established playbook with painful precision.

Iran’s Strait of Hormuz: The Oil Supply Risk That Changes Everything

To understand why the US-Israeli strikes on Iran represent such a significant macro catalyst — not just for crypto but for every financial market that will open on Monday — it is necessary to understand the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz. This narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea is the most critical single chokepoint in the global energy supply chain. Approximately 20% of the world’s total petroleum liquids and 17% of total global liquefied natural gas exports pass through the Strait every single day. Any military conflict that threatens to close or restrict passage through the Strait would create an immediate global energy supply shock.

Iran has historically used threats to close the Strait of Hormuz as its most powerful geopolitical bargaining chip. As recently as February 2026, Iran temporarily closed the waterway for military exercises — a demonstration of its capability and willingness to use the Strait as leverage in any military confrontation. With the US and Israel having now conducted actual strikes on Iranian targets, the risk of an Iranian counter-response targeting oil tankers, energy infrastructure, or the Strait itself has risen dramatically. Oil futures markets will reflect this elevated risk premium when they open for trading on Sunday evening, and that repricing in energy markets could create additional macro headwinds for risk assets like Bitcoin when the week begins.

The analysis from Capital Economics, circulated widely on Friday in advance of the strikes, captured the essential dilemma neatly: strikes on Iran risk causing oil prices to jump and threatening to boost global inflation, potentially reducing the pace or number of interest rate cuts by major central banks. For Bitcoin, which has been desperately waiting for monetary policy easing to provide a tailwind for risk appetite, a fresh wave of energy-driven inflation that delays Fed rate cuts would represent a meaningful additional headwind on top of the direct risk-off selling pressure from the geopolitical news itself.

Bitcoin as the Weekend Pressure Valve: A Recurring and Concerning Pattern

Saturday’s brutal selloff reinforces a pattern that has been becoming increasingly clear throughout 2025 and 2026: Bitcoin has evolved into a weekend risk management tool for institutional investors rather than a genuine safe haven or store of value. When markets are open during the week, Bitcoin tends to track broader risk sentiment closely — rising when equities and tech stocks rise, falling when they fall. On weekends, when institutional investors need to reduce exposure to geopolitical shocks but cannot access traditional markets, Bitcoin becomes their emergency exit.

This dynamic played out in almost identical fashion when the United States previously carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025. On that occasion, Bitcoin plunged sharply during the weekend session — at a time when BTC was trading near $100,000 — before recovering most of its losses once traditional financial markets reopened and institutional investors had access to a broader range of risk management tools. The pattern suggests two important things: first, that weekend crypto selloffs during geopolitical crises may often be overblown relative to the ultimate fundamental impact of the events; and second, that Bitcoin’s recovery potential after such events is often substantial once the initial panic subsides and buying demand reasserts itself.

However, the current market context makes any near-term recovery considerably more uncertain than it was during the June 2025 episode. Bitcoin has entered this weekend’s geopolitical shock from a position of significant weakness — already down 23% year-to-date, approaching but not yet at the February 5 panic lows near $60,000, and trading in an environment of deeply negative macro sentiment driven by tariffs, stagflation concerns, and persistent institutional selling pressure. The situation is analogous to a fighter entering a bout already exhausted from a previous fight: capable of surviving, but lacking the energy reserve needed for a convincing counterattack.

What the Options Market Is Telling Us About Where BTC Goes Next

Perhaps the most sobering signals about Bitcoin’s near-term outlook come from the options market, where professional institutional investors are currently placing their real-money bets on future price outcomes. Data from Deribit — the world’s largest crypto options exchange — reveals that ETF holders and corporate treasuries have been actively purchasing put options at the $60,000 strike price expiring six to twelve months out, with the $55,000 put close behind in terms of open interest. Put options of this type give their holders the right to sell Bitcoin at the specified strike price, and buying them is a form of insurance against further dramatic price declines.

The fact that institutional investors with long-term crypto holdings are willing to pay a premium for downside protection at $60,000 and $55,000 — well below current market prices — is a clear signal that these sophisticated participants see meaningful probability that Bitcoin could trade at those levels in the coming months. It is important to note that buying puts does not mean institutional holders are intending to sell their Bitcoin — many are simply hedging existing positions rather than predicting a crash. But the scale of the hedging activity, and the strike prices being protected, speak to a genuine institutional assessment that the downside risks remain significant and worth insuring against.

Put volume on Deribit during Friday’s session edged past call volume at 50.85% versus 49.15% — a modest but symbolically important majority for bearish bets over bullish ones. Analysts at Wincent noted that following the February options expiry earlier in the week, traders appear to be positioning for Bitcoin to remain below $72,000 to $74,000 through March, with a support floor being priced around $54,000. That range — $54,000 on the downside, $72,000 to $74,000 on the upside — represents the market’s current probabilistic assessment of where Bitcoin is most likely to trade in the coming weeks.

Key Levels, What to Watch, and When Traditional Markets Reopen

As trading continued through Saturday afternoon with Bitcoin hovering near $63,000–$64,000, the immediate technical picture was finely balanced. The $62,800–$64,000 zone has been identified by multiple analysts as the first meaningful support area that needs to hold for the near-term structure to remain constructive. A decisive and sustained break below $62,800 would invalidate hopes for a near-term recovery and potentially open the door for a test of the February 5 intraday low near $60,000 — a level that already represented one of the most psychologically significant support zones in the current market cycle.

Analysts at CryptoQuant noted an encouraging signal amid the carnage: exchange netflows showed approximately 522 BTC leaving trading platforms during Saturday’s selling pressure, a pattern consistent with accumulation as contrarian buyers withdrew coins from exchanges to cold storage. Someone with conviction is purchasing what panicked sellers are offering. This accumulation signal, while far from sufficient to guarantee a near-term bottom, is at least consistent with the early stages of the kind of demand that eventually arrests severe declines. How much more supply needs to be absorbed before that demand dominates is the unanswerable question at the center of the current market dynamics.

The next major catalyst event will come when conventional financial markets reopen Sunday evening and Monday morning. Oil futures and equity index futures will reprice rapidly to reflect the new geopolitical reality, and the direction of those repricing moves will tell the crypto market a great deal about whether the Iran situation represents a contained or expanding risk. If oil markets price in a significant supply disruption premium and equity futures gap down sharply at the Sunday open, Bitcoin could face additional downward pressure. If the market’s initial reaction proves to be an overreaction — consistent with previous geopolitical shocks that resolved more quickly than feared — Bitcoin’s historical tendency to recover sharply after weekend crisis lows could reassert itself.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why did Bitcoin crash on February 28, 2026?

Bitcoin fell nearly 5% to approximately $63,000 after the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran on Saturday morning. The crypto market, which trades 24/7 unlike equity and bond markets that are closed on weekends, absorbed the full force of global risk-off sentiment as one of the only major liquid assets available to traders during the weekend selloff. The strikes intensified fears of a broader regional conflict and potential disruption to Middle Eastern oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.

How much money was liquidated in the February 28 crypto crash?

According to CoinGlass data, approximately $515 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated within 24 hours of the Iran strikes, with 152,275 individual traders losing their positions. The largest single liquidation was an $11.17 million BTCUSDT trade on the Aster exchange. Roughly $128 billion in total crypto market capitalization was erased in the immediate aftermath of the news.

What is Bitcoin’s current price after the crash?

As of Saturday February 28, 2026, Bitcoin is trading near $63,000–$64,000 after hitting a low of $63,038 — its lowest price since the February 5 panic selloff when Bitcoin briefly dipped below $60,000.

Why does Bitcoin always crash on weekends during geopolitical crises?

Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unlike stocks, bonds, and most other financial markets that close on weekends. This means that when major geopolitical events — like military strikes on Iran — occur over a weekend, crypto is one of the only liquid markets available for investors to sell when they need to reduce risk exposure quickly. This structural dynamic makes Bitcoin a recurring “pressure valve” for weekend geopolitical shocks and typically leads to price declines that may overstate the long-term fundamental impact of the events.

What are the key Bitcoin price levels to watch after the Iran crash?

The critical support zone to monitor is $62,800–$64,000. If Bitcoin can hold above this range, there is potential for stabilization and eventual recovery when traditional markets reopen. A decisive break below $62,800 would risk opening the door to a test of $60,000 — the February 5 panic low. On the upside, Bitcoin needs to reclaim $66,000 to signal any near-term stabilization, and $72,000–$74,000 would need to be cleared to alter the medium-term bearish structure.

Could the Iran strikes push Bitcoin below $60,000?

It is possible but not certain. Options market data shows institutional investors buying put protection at $60,000 and $55,000 strikes, suggesting professional traders see meaningful probability of those levels being tested. Analysts at Bitrue have previously warned that a sustained break below $60,000 could trigger cascading liquidations toward $50,000–$55,000. However, Bitcoin’s history during geopolitical crises shows that initial weekend declines are often partially or fully recovered once traditional markets reopen.

How does the Iran conflict affect oil prices and crypto?

A US-Israeli strike on Iran raises the risk of Iranian counter-responses targeting oil tankers, energy infrastructure, or potentially the Strait of Hormuz — through which approximately 20% of the world’s daily oil supply passes. Any disruption to that supply would push global oil prices sharply higher, reigniting inflationary pressures and potentially delaying Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. Delayed rate cuts would reduce liquidity and risk appetite in financial markets, creating additional macro headwinds for speculative assets like Bitcoin.