Bitcoin broke below $65,000 as tariff uncertainty hit fragile crypto markets

Bitcoin fell below $65,000 during the evening of February 22, 2026, as a rapid, market-wide decline exposed the cryptocurrency market’s sensitivity to macroeconomic uncertainty and leveraged positioning.

The Block’s U.S.-dollar bitcoin price page placed bitcoin near $67,600 at approximately 7:20 p.m. Eastern Time and near $64,700 less than two hours later. That represents a calculated decline of about 4.3% over the stated interval. The move occurred on February 22 in New York, although the corresponding timestamps after 7 p.m. Eastern fell on February 23 in Coordinated Universal Time.

Ether, XRP and solana also declined, making the episode broader than a bitcoin-only repricing. The available evidence supports the price move and its timing. It does not prove that any single headline caused it.

A market already under pressure

The decline arrived after an unusually weak opening stretch for digital assets in 2026. Coinbase Institutional’s February 20 market commentary described bitcoin as having rolled through $66,000 before stabilizing and identified the region from $65,000 through $60,000 as one where negative options gamma could amplify a selloff. That analysis was a market-structure interpretation, not a forecast or guarantee, but it documented the fragile positioning visible before the February 22 break.

Coinbase also described rising demand for short-dated downside protection and higher implied volatility in bitcoin. Those conditions help explain why a comparatively short price move could accelerate: when traders reduce exposure, hedge options positions or close leveraged longs, their transactions can reinforce the direction already underway.

Contemporaneous reporting cited approximately $360 million of crypto long-position liquidations during one hour. That figure came from Coinglass’s aggregation of available derivatives-venue data and should be treated as an estimate, not a complete accounting of every exchange or position. Coinburn therefore does not use it to calculate total market losses.

Tariff headlines added uncertainty

The market move followed an unsettled sequence in U.S. trade policy. On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled in *Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump* that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the challenged presidential tariffs. The White House then issued a proclamation imposing a temporary 10% import surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, scheduled to take effect on February 24 for 150 days.

On February 21, President Donald Trump said he wanted that worldwide rate raised to 15%. Associated Press reporting available during the February 22 news cycle noted that the White House had not yet supplied an updated signed instrument establishing the higher rate. The distinction mattered: the verified proclamation specified 10%, while 15% remained the president’s publicly stated intention at that point.

Bitcoin’s decline alongside weaker equity futures supported an interpretation that traders were reducing risk as they assessed the court decision, the replacement tariff and the possibility of further changes. It did not establish a clean causal relationship. Cryptocurrency trades continuously, and weekend liquidity can differ from weekday conditions when major equity and derivatives markets are open.

What the February 22 record established

The firm conclusion is narrow but consequential. Bitcoin crossed below $65,000 during a roughly two-hour decline on February 22, and other major crypto assets moved lower with it. The episode reinforced bitcoin’s role in early 2026 as a continuously traded outlet for macroeconomic risk repricing rather than an asset insulated from trade, currency and interest-rate expectations.

The surviving record cannot determine how much of the move came from tariff news, geopolitical developments, options hedging, liquidations or ordinary selling. It also cannot supply a universal bitcoin “close”: prices vary by venue, currency pair and daily cutoff. Any assessment of the episode should therefore retain the named data provider, local-time window and market-data limitations instead of treating $64,700 as a single official global price.