Bitcoin Slumps Below 79K: Panic, Liquidations, & a President in the Shadows

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I’ve always liked numbers. The way they go up and down, the way they make fortune hunters sweat-except when they make your coffee heater melt.

  • Bitcoin’s latest emotional roller‑coaster: it slipped to $78,704 on May 13, after the producer price index (PPI) decided to take a shot at the sky.
  • Coinglass whispers that the collapse gave the market an adorable $94 million in BTC long liquidations: the kind of drama that makes even seasoned traders run for the ice‑cream truck.
  • And Polymarket, that merry little oracle, says the Fed will keep rates flat in June-despite the PPI’s 1.4% hop in April 2026.

Geopolitics and Money-Or Why We Love a Good Tension

Bitcoin, that flashy little rock‑star of speculation, dipped below $79,000 for a moment. It had been partying over $81,000 earlier-one might say the cryptocurrency equivalent of a man who’s had too much alcohol and suddenly decides he needs to walk home.

When the crude numbers finally came out, the market said, “Okay, time to dive!” It fell to an intraday low of $78,704, then struggled to climb back, ending up just above $79,000. It lost roughly $3,000 from its May 11 peak of $82,145 – the kind of loss that would make a GPA suffer.

While the script was unfolding, a Trump administration charade-rejecting an Iranian counter‑peace proposal-suddenly released a ticking bomb. We all sat on the edge of our chairs, waiting to see whether Washington would sulk or swing into action after President Donald Trump joked about U.S.-Iran relations being on “life support.”

Then came the consumer price index (CPI) data, like an unwelcome surprise party, showing that inflation was “slightly ahead of projections.” Bitunix’s worth‑your‑spice analyst explained that the CPI “shows that energy‑driven price shocks are once again taking center stage, spreading their influence into housing, services, and beyond.”

“Even after two years of restrictive monetary policy,” the analyst mused, “inflation in the United States has not truly returned to a stable trajectory.” The result? A little hope that the Fed might have to raise rates, not lower them.

Another hand‑off to the prediction markets-Polymarket and Kalshi-highlighted that the odds of the Federal Reserve keeping rates unchanged in June were now “around 100%.” That’s like a probability so high it makes unicorns feel insecure.

Boston Fed President Susan Collins reportedly warned that “some policy tightening is needed to ensure inflation returns durably to 2% in a timely manner.” For risk‑on assets such as tech stocks and Bitcoin, any tightening feels like a good punch in the jaw, reducing the upside potential.

On the trading floor, again, long positions went to the chopping block while short positions…well, they didn’t enjoy a holiday. Coinglass data showed that the long side was liquidated for $94 million, a staggering $37 million more than the previous day. Short liquidations consolidated at just $7.5 million on a Tuesday that used to be more like a Friday night party.

In the grand finale, the cryptocurrency market conceded that $304 million in long positions were liquidated against $71 million in shorts-an outcome that would make even a hedge fund manager weep into their portfolio.

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2026-05-13 21:58