- After President Trump issued a new tariff threat, the cryptocurrency market turned red.
- Trump threatened to stop importing edible oil from China over its soybean purchases.
- Bitcoin fell 2.4%, while Ether dropped 3.3% within an hour of the post.
A social-media post once again injected fear into the cryptocurrency markets. U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest unconventional tariff threat triggered a fresh wave of selling, pushing the entire digital-asset sector into losses.
The abrupt downturn served as a sharp and painful reminder that markets remain extremely sensitive to the president’s sudden pronouncements. That fragility was harshly exposed during last week’s historic liquidation event.
“Economic hostility” sparks immediate market reaction
The catalyst for the recent sell-off was a post on Truth Social on October 14, in which President Trump targeted Beijing’s trade behavior, specifically accusing China of failing to buy U.S. soybeans.
Trump wrote that he believed China was deliberately not purchasing U.S. soybeans, harming American soybean growers, calling the action “economic hostility.”
“We are considering ending business related to edible oils and other trade elements with China as retaliation. For example, we can easily produce edible oil ourselves; we don’t need to buy it from China.”
The market response was immediate and severe. Within an hour of the post, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped about 2.4% to near $112,861, while Ether (ETH) fell roughly 3.3% to around $4,108.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell by roughly 2.9%, a clear and direct reaction to the president’s latest trade-war rhetoric.
The specter of liquidations
While the recent sell-off was meaningful, it was more of an aftershock compared with last week’s market-shattering event.
Earlier, Trump had threatened to impose 100% tariffs on all Chinese imports, prompting a violent, historic market plunge.
At its peak, that “bloodbath” resulted in over $1.92 billion in leveraged positions being liquidated, marking the largest single-day liquidations in cryptocurrency history and overwhelming major exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase.
The memory of that liquidation remains vivid, leaving the market in a very fragile, jittery state.
Even before Trump’s latest post, crypto analysts had warned of an impending collapse. A prominent analyst advised traders on October 13 to exit positions ahead of a predicted “big sell-off.”
A market on a knife edge
Coinglass’s latest data show the market is still bleeding from last week’s wounds.
In the past 24 hours alone, another $715.13 million in positions were liquidated, the vast majority being long positions.
This fresh wave of selling, triggered by the president’s post about soybeans and edible oil, highlights the strange and unpredictable forces currently driving digital assets.
In a market haunted by the memory of a historic collapse and susceptible to the caprices of a single social-media post, the only certainty is that further uncertainty lies ahead.