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Bitcoin slipped below $66,000 in Monday’s Asian session after briefly nearing $67,000, according to Coinpedia, as Iran’s drone strike on Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery sent oil up 7 percent and risk appetite into a ditch. S&P 500 E-mini futures dropped 1.4 percent to 6,790. Gold reclaimed $5,400. BTC is now 47 percent below its 2025 all-time high of $126,080, per CoinCodeCap – and Monday is only getting started.
$515 Million in Liquidations and Nobody Even Saw Monday
Here is what happened in 72 hours. On Friday evening, coordinated US-Israeli strikes hit Iranian missile systems, naval bases, and nuclear infrastructure. Bitcoin was around $67,700. By Saturday morning, it was $63,000. The total crypto market cap shed roughly $128 billion in value, according to CryptoTicker, and CoinGlass data showed over $515 million in leveraged positions liquidated within 24 hours, affecting roughly 140,000 traders according to BlockchainReporter. Approximately $100 million of that was gone in the first fifteen minutes, per Coindoo, as cascading margin calls ripped through long positions on Binance, Bybit, Bitfinex, Kraken, and Coinbase. Market makers including Wintermute and FalconX were among the sellers, Coinpedia reported, with nearly $5 billion in BTC outflows across major platforms in under half an hour.
Then the plot twist. Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the strikes. Bitcoin bounced to $68,196, Bloomberg reported, as traders read de-escalation into the power vacuum. Ether jumped 4.58 percent back above $2,000. For a few hours on Sunday morning, it looked like the worst was over.
It was not. Iran hit back. Missiles landed in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain. A Shahed-136 drone struck Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery, shutting 550,000 barrels per day of refining capacity. By Sunday afternoon in New York, Bitcoin had reversed to roughly $65,300, Bloomberg reported, down 2.1 percent. Ether gave back its gains to trade 2.3 percent weaker at $1,912. Monday morning brought a brief push toward $67,000 in Asia, then the Ras Tanura news hit and BTC dropped right back below $66,000. At press time, Bitcoinist cited BTC at $66,218.
Leverage Did What Leverage Does
If you were long and leveraged going into the weekend, this one’s bad. CoinGlass showed $192.4 million in BTC futures liquidations and $149.14 million in ETH futures liquidations over 24 hours during the peak selling, as CryptoTimes reported. XRP and Solana were not spared either, with $11.78 million and $27.93 million in liquidations respectively. Total open interest on BTC sat at $43.4 billion, with derivatives volume at $68.27 billion against just $7.02 billion in spot. That ratio tells the whole story: this was a leverage wipeout, not organic selling.
Perpetual funding rates dropped to minus 6 percent on Saturday, matching the most negative level in three months, according to CoinDesk citing CoinGlass. Last time rates were this negative was February 6, when BTC bottomed near $60,000. If you are not familiar: negative funding means shorts are paying to stay short, which is usually a contrarian signal for a squeeze. Usually. When the geopolitical backdrop keeps deteriorating, contrarian setups can stay underwater longer than your margin can stay solvent. CNBC cited a CryptoQuant report noting that Bitcoin has broken below its 365-day moving average for the first time since March 2022, declining 23 percent in the 83 days since the breakdown, which is worse than the early 2022 bear phase. That is not the kind of stat you want to see going into Monday’s US open.
Gold Goes Brrrr, Crypto Goes Nowhere, XAUT Goes Parabolic
If you are wondering how institutional money classifies crypto right now, the gold-BTC divergence this weekend spells it out for you. Gold jumped above $5,400 per ounce, rising 2.22 percent on Monday and adding roughly $1 trillion in market value in six hours, per Coinpedia. Silver surged to $96, up 4.32 percent. Gold now sits just 3.2 percent from a fresh all-time high. Bitcoin? Trading 24 to 66 percent below its historical trend compared to gold and global money supply, according to Jan3 CEO Samson Mow. “Digital gold” it is not. At least not this week.
The on-chain rotation tells its own story. BeInCrypto reported that the tokenized gold sector’s market cap now exceeds $6 billion, with CoinGecko showing daily trading volumes for both XAUT and PAXG surpassing $1 billion. An Ethereum whale tracked by OnchainLens swapped 1,000 ETH worth $1.94 million for 358.49 XAUT at $5,413, booking a $60,000 loss on the ETH leg just to get into gold exposure. Meanwhile, Abraxas Capital Management received 28,723 XAUT tokens worth $151 million from Tether’s treasury, according to Arkham Intelligence data, the largest XAUT transaction in three weeks. The rotation out of crypto risk and into on-chain gold is not subtle. It is the same signal precious metals have been flashing across the board.
The Monday Test
Everything before this morning was prologue. Weekend crypto trades on thin liquidity, and most leveraged longs were already flushed during Saturday’s crash. Monday is when regulated US venues, spot ETF flows, and cross-asset pricing all hit the same orderbook. If you are watching one thing, make it ETF flows. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have bled roughly $4.5 billion in 2026, with BlackRock’s IBIT shedding over $2.1 billion and Fidelity’s FBTC losing more than $954 million in just five weeks, per SosoValue data cited by BeInCrypto. The one bright spot: ETFs snapped the streak in late February, recording over $1 billion in net inflows across three straight sessions, according to Coinpedia. On Deribit, CoinCodeCap noted the $60,000 put had become the most heavily held option by open interest, with roughly 5,200 BTC in position. When the market’s biggest bets are positioned for pain, they tend to attract it.
Ryan McMillin, CIO at Merkle Tree Capital, told Decrypt that the initial sell-off was “almost textbook” and the reflexive bid came back fast once things looked contained. The problem: it no longer looks contained. A refinery is on fire, the Strait of Hormuz is seeing tanker strikes, and Iran is escalating despite losing its supreme leader. Han Tan, chief market analyst at Bybit Learn, told Decrypt that Brent pushing toward $80 raises inflation risk that is directly negative for risk assets. That is your cue to watch the macro chain: oil up, inflation expectations up, rate cuts delayed, BTC down.
The bull case exists, but it is longer-dated. Arthur Hayes published an essay on Sunday called “iOS Warfare,” per Bitcoinist, arguing that a prolonged US campaign in Iran ultimately forces the Fed toward rate cuts and money printing, which is bullish for BTC on a multi-month horizon. His advice: do not front-run it, wait for policy confirmation. CoinCodeCap also flagged that Abu Dhabi sovereign funds Mubadala and Al Warda both added spot Bitcoin ETF exposure in mid-February – quiet institutional accumulation underneath the panic. Whether that matters more than Monday’s headline risk remains to be seen.
Your Monday Checklist
Monday’s spot ETF flow data is the single most important number for the next 48 hours. Strong inflows mean the $63,000 Saturday low holds as a double bottom with the February 5 crash. Weak inflows or net outflows mean the market’s largest structural buyer has stepped aside and the $60,000 level that the liquidation engine has been targeting since weekly RSI hit an all-time low comes into play fast. QCP Capital warned in a February 23 note, cited by CryptoTimes, that BTC’s break below $65,000 came amid a “perfect storm” of tariff pressure and Iran risk, with $230 million in liquidations during that move alone. Monday is the same storm with higher winds.
Altcoins: Ethereum holding above $1,900 with a record 37.1 million ETH staked, per Coinpedia, and declining exchange supply provides a structural floor – but will not save you in a broad risk-off. Solana closed the week up 0.98 percent at $83.60 on strong developer activity and steady ETF inflows, though BeInCrypto’s technical analysis points to a head-and-shoulders target near $59 if $80 breaks. If you are sitting in alts, $80 SOL is your line in the sand.
Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear and Greed Index dropped to 10 on Monday, down 4 points from Sunday, per Bitcoin Sistemi. Last week, CoinMarketCap data showed the index hitting a year-to-date low of 5, a reading that CryptBull noted has only been reached twice before in Bitcoin’s entire history: the 2018-2019 bear market and the FTX collapse in November 2022. Both times, the extreme fear preceded accumulation phases that lasted months before a sustained recovery. That sounds great on a 12-month chart. On a Monday morning when Brent is pushing $80 and a refinery is offline, it does not help your open positions one bit.
