Middle East tension causes massive crypto market shakeup, $489 million liquidated

Bitcoin (BTC) crashed in tandem with stock markets on Oct. 1 as tensions continued to escalate in the Middle East after Israel announced ground operations in Lebanon, which has prompted Iran to take action.

The official account of Israel Defense Forces on X shared at 4:36 P.M. UTC that Iran was firing rockets at Israeli territory. Additionally, reports claim that Iran is likely to send a second wave of missiles targeting Israel in the ensuing hours.

As a result, over $489 million was liquidated over the past 24 hours, with the majority of liquidations — $312 million — occurring within the past four hours, according to Coinglass data.

Long liquidations accounted for $416.6 million of the total, while short liquidations amounted to roughly $73 million.

According to CryptoSlate data, BTC was trading at $61,598 as of press time, down 3% over the past day.

Altcoins see heavier losses

Major altcoins displayed heavier corrections following the news. Ethereum (ETH) was down 4.31% as of press time and trading at $2,490, while Solana (SOL) was down over 5.51% and trading at $146.8.

Toncoin (TON) and Dogecoin (DOGE) registered the worst performance, tumbling 6.2% and 7.3%, respectively, to $5.33 and $0.1063.

The Fear and Greed Index — which measures crypto investors’ sentiment daily — fell from the greed zone at 61 points to the neutral area at 50 points in 24 hours.

Gold, dollar surge

The US equities market also registered losses today, with the S&P 500 (SPX) shrinking 1.1% and the Nasdaq Index pulling back 1.85%. Nvidia (NVDA) stocks are down 4%, and Apple (AAPL) shares fell 3.6%.

Meanwhile, the US Dollar Index is up 0.6%, followed by a 1.1% leap registered by the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index (XAU).

Jeroen Blokland, founder of the Blokland Smart Multi-Asset Fund, stated on X that investors are “literally selling” BTC to buy gold amid the intensification of the conflict. However, he added that Bitcoin’s average return as a hedge against geopolitical events has proven to be a good decision since 2020.

Citing a BlackRock report, Blokland highlighted that BTC outpaced the 60-day returns of SPX and gold during the US-Iran conflict and Covid outbreak in 2020, the deflagration of war between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, and the US banking crisis in 2023.

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