Bitcoin Price Drops Below $103,000: What Is the Reason?

After reaching $110,450 on Monday, the price of Bitcoin is experiencing its third consecutive red day as the benchmark cryptocurrency has fallen 5.3% from the day's high of $108,450 to a low of $102,664 before bouncing back to around $104,456 at the time of reporting. The sell-off occurred almost minute by minute, with confirmation that Israel has conducted large-scale airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, creating shockwaves across all major asset classes. Why did the price of Bitcoin fall today? Israel's pre-dawn campaign — the first public attack on Iranian territory since the raids in October 2024 — immediately revalued global risks. Futures prices for oil surged over 10%, spot gold prices hit a new record high of over $3,400 an ounce, and U.S. stock futures fell by about 1.5%. Bitcoin's decline mirrored its initial reaction to Iran's failed missile attack on Israel in April. "Oil is rising. Gold is rising. Bitcoin is falling," Anthony Pompliano wrote on X, noting that this pattern is similar to the rocket incident in April, after which "Bitcoin outperformed those two currencies in the first 48 hours." Bitcoin educator Peter Duan argues in a private post that "the price of Bitcoin falls every time there is significant geopolitical [volatility]… In the long run, this will only drive more people to switch to Bitcoin," pointing out the 24/7 nature of cryptocurrency transactions compared to the stock cash market which is still closed. Macro strategist Joe Consorti delved into the mechanism: "Bitcoin, S&P, and NDX are all being sold off due to panic. Crude oil, natural gas, gold, and U.S. Treasury bonds are all rising higher. The flight to safety trading is here." A new surge in crude oil prices is exactly what US policymakers do not need. West Texas Intermediate soared past $77 a barrel—the first time it reached that level in four months—after Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, erasing much of its hard-won deflationary dividend and pulling energy back into the limelight. The contract is now $21 above its April low, threatening to break the healthy price trend that has taken place. This follows after U.S. inflation data once again surprised positively this week. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May rose only 0.1% month-on-month and 2.4% year-on-year, while the core CPI matched that modest increase of 0.1% and remained at 2.8% on an annual basis. Producer prices also showed a similar story on Thursday, with the headline PPI rising just 0.1% from the previous month and 2.6% year-on-year, both below consensus expectations. Lower fuel costs have been the cornerstone of President Trump's strategy to curb inflation; the new spike in oil prices is currently threatening that narrative. If energy prices continue to rise, the market will anticipate that headline inflation will rebound and the Federal Reserve may feel compelled to delay the rate-cutting cycle that traders have planned for September. Bitcoin, which is very sensitive to fluctuations in global liquidity, often performs poorly when policy outlooks lean towards tighter financial conditions, which explains the sudden fall of this coin along with the spike in crude oil prices. This news article has caused one of the largest forced liquidations of 2025. CoinGlass data shows that approximately 1.14 billion dollars in cryptocurrency futures positions have been wiped out in the past 24 hours, of which 1.04 billion dollars were long positions, as 236,788 traders were forced to exit the market. The largest strike was a buy order of 201 million dollars for BTC-USDT on Binance, the largest liquidation ticket since January. Specifically for Bitcoin, the total buy liquidation orders reached 443 million dollars. For the entire cryptocurrency market, this is the worst wipeout since the sell-off after tariffs on February 3, when 1.25 billion dollars were liquidated across the entire complex.