Crypto Markets Surge Past $1 Billion in Liquidations as Trump Retracts EU Tariff Threat

Global cryptocurrency markets experienced a sharp upward surge, triggering more than $1 billion in trader liquidations after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a retreat from proposed tariff measures against the European Union. The shift in trade sentiment sparked widespread buying across major digital assets, pushing Bitcoin within reach of $90,000 and reinvigorating risk appetite across global trading desks.

Bitcoin led the market recovery with a 2 percent increase to $89,900, while Ethereum rose 2 percent to trade at $2,995. Altcoins followed suit, with Solana climbing 2 percent to $130 and XRP gaining 3 percent to $1.94. Smaller-capitalization tokens recorded even steeper gains, led by CC with a 15 percent jump, SKY rising 11 percent, and Sandbox (SAND) gaining 10 percent. The sudden price turn led to a massive forced unwinding of derivative positions, as rapid upward momentum squeezed bearish traders who had leveraged bets against market recovery.

The market turnaround coincided with critical legislative developments in Washington. The Senate Agriculture Committee confirmed plans to advance its version of the Clarity Act to markup next week, proceeding despite a lack of formal bipartisan consensus. The committee exercises oversight over the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a regulator that industry advocates generally favor over the Securities and Exchange Commission to supervise spot digital commodity trading. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump publicly expressed intent to sign comprehensive market structure legislation into law, even as lawmakers continue negotiating regulatory boundaries and jurisdictional authority between federal agencies.

Institutional infrastructure also marked a major milestone as institutional custodian BitGo unveiled terms for its initial public offering. Priced at $18 per share, the listing values the digital asset custody pioneer at approximately $2 billion, offering traditional investors a direct equity exposure to institutional crypto infrastructure.

In the consumer financial sector, non-bank mortgage lender Newrez initiated efforts to evaluate Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings for mortgage loan qualifications. Under the proposal, the lender plans to apply discounted valuations—a risk-mitigation technique commonly known as an asset haircut—to cushion against severe crypto price fluctuations while expanding home financing options for digital asset investors.

Abroad, regulatory frameworks and judicial precedents continued to mature. Hong Kong financial authorities moved forward with plans to issue new stablecoin licenses, enforcing strict operational, reserve backing, and compliance standards. The step aligns with Hong Kong’s strategic push to establish a heavily regulated virtual asset environment in Asia. Concurrently, courts in Russia issued a landmark ruling recognizing cryptocurrencies as legal property, establishing a formal precedent that enables judges to adjudicate digital asset disputes, bankruptcy proceedings, and criminal asset recovery cases.

Technical developments and security events highlighted the ongoing evolution of decentralized networks. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin introduced a proposal to integrate native Distributed Validator Technology directly into the network’s consensus layer. The mechanism allows multiple node operators to jointly run individual validators, addressing single-point-of-failure vulnerabilities inherent in centralized staking pools. Separately, Saga’s Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain suspended network operations after suffering a $7 million security breach, with bad actors transferring stolen funds to the Ethereum mainnet via cross-chain bridge protocols.

In retail business adoption, restaurant chain Steak ’n Shake launched a Bitcoin bonus incentive program for its hourly employees, enabling workers to receive a portion of their compensation directly in Bitcoin.