Bitcoin Price Drops to $76,000 as Iran Reverses Hormuz Reopening

The year 2026 saw one of its biggest short squeezes, which occurred and dissipated within a single session. Bitcoin reached $78,000 on Friday evening, triggering liquidations worth $762 million across 168,336 traders, with $593 million of those being short positions, according to CoinGlass. However, by Saturday evening in Asia, bitcoin had retreated to $76,091, resulting in a mere 0.8% increase for the day. This reversal was prompted by Iran's announcement that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed to maritime traffic once 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 down the waterway, with one supertanker reporting gunfire and aborting its transit. In response to a U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping, state news agency Nour stated that Hormuz had returned to "strict management and control by the armed forces." Several oil tankers that had rushed toward the strait on the initial reopening news turned back. The breakout rally on Friday ended with a $590 million rout of shorts, 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, representing the cleanest short-heavy breakdown in a liquidation event since February. The setup for this had been building for weeks, with funding rates on bitcoin perpetuals pinned negative, meaning shorts were paying longs a premium to hold their positions. The reopening of Hormuz on Friday served as the catalyst that triggered the flip. Crude oil prices dropped nearly 10% to $85.90 per barrel following the initial headline, and bitcoin broke above the $76,000-$78,000 zone that had capped every rally attempt since the February 5 crash. President Donald Trump later stated that Iran had agreed to an "unlimited" suspension of its nuclear program, although Tehran never confirmed this claim. None of these developments 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, resulting in a forced unwind that 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%. 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. A loss of this level would put bitcoin back in the same range it has been trapped in since March, only this time with the short base that just got wiped out looking to rebuild.