Bitcoin Drops to $76,000 Following Iran's Reversal on Hormuz Strait

The year 2026 witnessed one of its largest short squeezes, which occurred and subsided within a single session. Bitcoin surged to $78,000 on Friday, prompting the liquidation of $762 million across 168,336 traders, with $593 million of that amount being attributed to short positions, according to data from CoinGlass. By Saturday evening in Asia, bitcoin had retreated to $76,091, representing a mere 0.8% increase for the day, after Iran announced the reclosure of the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic less than 24 hours following its foreign minister's declaration that it was fully open. Two tanker owners informed Bloomberg that their vessels received Iranian radio transmissions indicating the waterway's closure, with one supertanker reporting gunfire and subsequently aborting its transit. The state news agency Nour reported that Hormuz had returned to 'strict management and control by the armed forces' in response to a U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping, prompting several oil tankers that had approached the strait on the initial reopening news to turn back. The breakout rally on Friday culminated in a $590 million rout of short positions, with bets on bitcoin accounting for $381 million in liquidations, the largest share, followed by ether shorts at $167 million. Shorts outnumbered longs by nearly four to one, marking the cleanest short-heavy breakdown in a liquidation event since February. This setup had been building for weeks, with funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals pinned negative, indicating that shorts were paying longs a premium to maintain their positions. The catalyst for the flip was Friday's Hormuz reopening, which led to a nearly 10% drop in crude oil prices to $85.90 per barrel and propelled bitcoin above the $76,000-$78,000 zone that had capped every rally attempt since the February 5 crash. However, President Donald Trump's statement on Friday night that Iran had agreed to an 'unlimited' suspension of its nuclear program was not confirmed by Tehran. By Saturday, none of these developments had survived intact. A familiar market pattern has emerged, where ceasefire headlines drive a rally, but a reversal headline arrives before the breakout can consolidate, leading to a forced unwind and another setup to work against. While bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies experienced a retreat, ether held up relatively better, declining by just 0.2% over 24 hours, whereas solana dropped 1.3% and dogecoin fell 2.1%. On a weekly basis, ether is still up 5.2%, XRP leads with a 6.4% increase, BNB added 4.6%, and bitcoin sits at 4.5%. The question now is whether the $76,000 zone will hold into Monday's open. A clean weekly close above $76,000 would preserve the structural break, even if the peace trade continues to whipsaw. Conversely, a loss of this level would send bitcoin back into the same range it has been trapped in since March, this time with the short base that just got wiped out looking to rebuild.