Bitcoin Price Drops to $76,000 Following Iran's Re-closure of Hormuz Strait

One of the most substantial short squeezes of 2026 occurred within a single session. Bitcoin reached $78,000 late on Friday, triggering $762 million in liquidations across 168,336 traders, with $593 million of that amount being on the short side, according to CoinGlass. By Saturday evening in Asia, bitcoin had fallen back to $76,091, up only 0.8% for the day, as Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed to maritime traffic again, less than 24 hours after its foreign minister declared it fully open. Two tanker owners informed Bloomberg that their vessels received Iranian radio transmissions shutting the waterway, with one supertanker reporting gunfire and aborting transit. The state news agency Nour stated that Hormuz had returned to 'strict management and control by the armed forces' in response to a U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping. Several oil tankers that had rushed toward the strait on Friday's initial reopening news turned back. The breakout rally on Friday ended in a $590 million shorts rout, with bets on bitcoin accounting for $381 million in liquidations, the largest share, followed by ether shorts at $167. Shorts outweighed longs by nearly four to one, the cleanest short-heavy breakdown in a liquidation event since February. The setup had been building for weeks, with funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals pinned negative, meaning shorts were paying longs a premium to hold their positions. Friday's Hormuz reopening was the catalyst that flipped it. Crude oil dropped nearly 10% to $85.90 per barrel on the initial headline, and bitcoin broke above the $76,000-$78,000 zone that has capped every rally attempt since the February 5 crash. President Donald Trump then told reporters on Friday night that Iran had agreed to an 'unlimited' suspension of its nuclear program, though Tehran never confirmed the claim. None of that survived into Saturday intact. The market pattern is now familiar, where ceasefire headlines drive a rally, but a reversal headline arrives before the breakout can consolidate. The forced unwind gets another setup to work against. Ether held up better than bitcoin on the retreat, down just 0.2% over 24 hours, while solana dropped 1.3% and dogecoin fell 2.1%. On a weekly basis, ether is still up 5.2%, XRP leads at 6.4%, BNB added 4.6%, and bitcoin sits at 4.5%. Whether the $76,000 zone holds into Monday's open is now the question. A clean weekly close above $76K would preserve the structural break even if the peace trade keeps whipsawing. A loss of the level and bitcoin is back in the same range it has been trapped in since March, only this time with the short base that just got wiped looking to rebuild.