Ethereum absorbed a heavier blow than Bitcoin after Donald Trump delivered a hardline statement on Iran, triggering a rapid sell-off across crypto. According to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost, more than $1 billion in ETH derivatives sell volume hit the market within a single hour of the remarks, with $968 million on Binance alone. At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $2,046, down 4.07% over 24 hours. Bitcoin stood at $66,473, down 3.11%, while Solana had fallen 5.62%.
Traders had priced in de-escalation
The market had spent two days rallying on the view that Trump’s prime-time address might point to a ceasefire or a cooling of the US-Iran conflict. Instead, he said the United States would strike Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks and did not present a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Risk assets reversed almost immediately, while traditional safe-haven trades gained traction.
The reaction extended well beyond crypto. The S&P 500 erased $500 billion in market value within minutes, oil moved higher, and US Treasury bonds rose as capital shifted toward safety. Crypto moved in the same direction, with derivatives seeing the strongest pressure.
Why ETH tends to suffer more than BTC
The article argues that Ethereum and Bitcoin are treated very differently when geopolitical stress rises. Bitcoin still benefits from part of the “digital gold” narrative, which can attract some defensive demand in periods of shock. Ethereum does not carry that same role. It is traded more like a high-beta risk asset, closer to a volatile tech stock than a store of value, so it is often sold earlier and more aggressively when institutions cut risk.
Derivatives positioning added to the move. A concentration of leveraged long exposure on Binance created the setup for a cascade. Once selling started, forced liquidations added momentum to the drop, leaving ETH in a steeper correction than the broader market move alone would suggest.
The same market sequence has repeated for weeks
The source says crypto has followed the same pattern repeatedly over the past five weeks: optimism, a Trump headline, then reversal. Each rebound was built on expectations of de-escalation, and each sell-off followed signals of escalation.
The CMC Fear and Greed Index currently sits at 27, which remains in Fear territory. Last month it fell to a yearly low of 15, labeled Extreme Fear, and has only partially recovered since then. Darkfost said financial markets are now in a period of “extreme uncertainty and volatility,” with price action becoming increasingly unstable. The article adds that this pattern is unlikely to change before the Strait of Hormuz reopens.