BTC drops below $77,000 for the first time since 1 May after President Donald Trump‘s late-Sunday Iran warning lit up oil markets and pushed the 30-year US Treasury yield to a level not seen since 2007. The move started in Asian trading on 18 May 2026 and erased roughly $33 billion from bitcoin’s market cap in hours. Here’s what triggered the sell-off and what we’re watching next.
Why BTC dropped below $77,000
Late on 17 May, Trump posted on Truth Social that “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.” The Bitcoin price immediately dropped below $77,000, falling to $76,900 and at one point even bottoming out around $76,620, according to CoinMarketCap data, as global markets reacted negatively to escalating tensions between the US and Iran.
Brent crude jumped 1.78% to $111.20, and WTI rose 2.2% to $107.70 within hours, raising concerns about rising inflation and the possibility of the Fed continuing its tight monetary policy.
Higher oil means higher inflation expectations, which push bond yields up. When “safe” government bonds pay more than 5% a year, money tends to flow out of risky, non-yielding assets like bitcoin.
The $600 million liquidation
A liquidation happens when a trader using borrowed money (called leverage) can’t cover their losing position, so the exchange forces a closeout. When prices fall fast, longs (bets that prices will rise) get wiped out first, which adds more sell pressure and triggers more liquidations. That’s the feedback loop we just watched.
Crypto analytics account DeFi Tracer flagged the speed of the wipeout on X: “THEY’RE SELLING MILLIONS OF $BTC, EVERY FEW MINUTES AND DUMPED PRICE TO $76,735 SOMETHING EXTREMELY BAD IS HAPPENING…”. Shows that wallets linked to Coinbase, Binance, and BYBIT are selling off millions of Bitcoin.
Total damage stretched to roughly $600 million within the hour, citing Coinglass.
That makes it the largest single-day liquidation since February, when BTC briefly crashed near $60,000.
What the on-chain data tells us
Here’s where it gets nuanced. According to Binance Research, nearly 60% of the bitcoin supply hasn’t moved in over a year, and exchange balances sit near six-year lows. Long-term holders are sitting tight.
But the short-term holder MVRV ratio (a measure of whether recent buyers are in profit) is currently below 1. That means people who bought BTC in the last few months are sitting on losses, and they’re far more likely to panic-sell on the next leg down.
CryptoQuant data shows long-term holders (anyone holding BTC for at least 155 days) now own around 15.26 million BTC, the highest since August 2025. Analyst Darkfost notes these wallets added roughly 316,000 BTC in the past 30 days — a sharp reversal from late November, when the same group cut balances by 650,000 BTC. Buyers who entered near the cycle top six months ago are now committed holders, not weak hands.
Treasury yields are the real story
The 30-year Treasury yield rose to 5.13% on Friday, its highest closing level since June 2007. The 10-year yield climbed to 4.59%, a 12-month high. Both broke through psychological levels (5% and 4.5%) that historically tighten financial conditions.
Why does this matter for crypto? Because Bitcoin doesn’t pay you anything to hold it. When risk-free Treasuries pay 5% a year, the bar for holding a volatile asset like BTC gets much higher. Polymarket traders now put the odds of the Fed holding rates at 98% in June and 94% in July, which means relief from this pressure is unlikely in the near term.
Darkfost also flagged a date worth circling. Roughly 800,000 BTC that left Coinbase last year hit the 155-day mark on 23 May, mechanically reclassifying those coins as long-term-held. That doesn’t force selling, but it adds fresh “long-term supply” to the chart and can shift how analysts read accumulation later this month.
We’re also watching the FOMC minutes due 20 May, pulled from Powell’s final meeting as Fed chair. Hawkish minutes keep yielding sticky. Dovish minutes could ease the macro overhang fast.
Saylor’s “Big Dot Energy” post hints at another buy
The institutional picture also softened. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $1 billion in net outflows last week, breaking a six-week inflow streak. With ETF demand cooling at the same time corporate treasury behaviour is being re-examined — including the shifting messaging from Strategy on whether MSTR might sell bitcoin to fund dividends — the institutional bid that drove April’s rally is thinner than it was two weeks ago.
On Sunday, Michael Saylor put Strategy’s Bitcoin habit back on the radar with a single X post: “Big Dot Energy,” next to the chart tracking the company’s BTC purchases over nearly six years. Saylor has posted similar charts right before previous buys, which is why traders are watching. Any new purchase this week adds to Strategy’s existing 818,869 BTC stack, worth roughly $63 billion at current prices.
Last week, Strategy also asked retail investors to vote on a tweak to STRC (its Series A perpetual preferred stock), moving dividend payments from once to twice a month. The annual rate stays the same. Either way, the corporate treasury story matters more than ever for where BTC heads next.
Where Bitcoin goes from here
Two levels matter right now. Popular trader Michaël van de Poppe flagged $76,000 as critical support. Lose that, and the next obvious target is $70,000. Hold it, and BTC can rebuild toward the $80,000 to $82,000 zone that’s been acting as resistance since early May.
- A peaceful resolution of the Iran standoff would flip the script fast — oil drops, yields ease, risk assets breathe. An escalation does the opposite.
- Trump is reportedly convening the Situation Room on Tuesday to weigh military options, so the next 48 hours carry real headline risk.
- It’s also worth keeping an eye on Strategy’s 818,334 BTC stack. Michael Saylor’s recent dividend funding comments have shifted how the market views the company’s “never sell” pledge, and any signal of corporate-treasury rebalancing during a downturn would amplify the macro pressure we’re already seeing.
For now, the fact that BTC drops below $77,000 on a single Truth Social post is a reminder that crypto doesn’t trade in a vacuum.
The post BTC Drops Below $77,000: $600M Liquidated in 60 Minutes appeared first on Memeburn.
