Bitcoin price slid to its lowest level in nearly a month on Friday, just as David Sacks confirmed he is stepping down as President Donald Trump’s “AI and crypto czar,” amplifying anxiety over the policy outlook for digital assets.
Summary
- Bitcoin drops below recent trading range as more than $500 million in leveraged crypto bets are liquidated.
- David Sacks exits his White House crypto advisory role after exhausting a 130‑day special‑employee term, raising questions over the durability of the administration’s pro‑Bitcoin agenda.
- Since Sacks’ appointment in late 2024, Bitcoin’s price has surged from below $100,000 to all‑time highs before the latest pullback, underscoring how policy signals have shaped the current cycle.
Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen to $65,720, its weakest print since March 2, before recovering slightly to around $65,804, a daily loss of more than 4% that dragged the wider crypto market lower. According to derivatives tracker CoinGlass, over $500 million in crypto positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with nearly 90% of the wipe‑out hitting long traders, a sign that over‑levered bullish bets were forced out en masse. Ethereum (ETH) slipped about 4% to roughly $1,980, Solana (SOL) dropped 5% to below $83, and BNB fell 3% to around $608, while heavily exposed crypto equities such as MicroStrategy and BitMine Immersion Technologies also hit one‑month lows.
Bitcoin price tumbles as White House crypto czar announces his departure
The sell‑off comes just as Sacks, the venture capitalist and co‑host of the “All‑In” podcast, confirmed that his stint as Trump’s AI and crypto point‑man has ended after he “exhausted” his allowable 130 days of service as a special government employee. Trump first tapped Sacks as “White House AI & Crypto Czar” in December 2024, saying the PayPal veteran would “guide policy for the Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness,” and work on a legal framework so the industry “can thrive in the U.S.” Pro‑market investors framed the appointment at the time as a watershed moment: “David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas,” Trump said, while Sacks later argued that the administration’s stance had put the U.S. “one step closer” to becoming the “crypto capital of the world.”
Sacks’ departure does not mark a hard pivot away from crypto, but it does introduce uncertainty around how cohesive the White House will remain on digital‑asset rules. He is set to move into a broader role as co‑chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, overseeing a wider “technology‑dominance strategy” rather than the day‑to‑day crypto rule‑making that had made him a focal point for the industry. During his tenure, he repeatedly tied regulatory clarity to market structure, telling one audience that “the aim of legislation is essentially to ensure stability,” and warning that if the sector continued to fear “the next Gensler,” investment would remain volatile and episodic.
While Bitcoin’s intraday slide to the mid‑$65,000s is modest compared with the more than 30% drawdowns seen in past cycles, it lands against a backdrop of souring macro sentiment, a synchronized drop in major U.S. stock indices, and renewed geopolitical tension in the Middle East. The Nasdaq fell about 1.5%, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones down roughly 1%, as investors digested rising oil prices and headlines that Israel would “escalate” strikes on Iran following missile attacks, even after Trump signaled a pause on hitting Iranian energy infrastructure. “Global markets are reassessing macro risks at a faster pace,” Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said, adding that although Bitcoin will likely “maintain high volatility in the short term,” lower leverage means recent drawdowns look more like “positioning resets” than the cascading liquidations of prior years.
Markets will now test how much of a “policy premium” was embedded in Bitcoin during Sacks’ time in the West Wing, when Trump’s pivot from crypto skeptic to industry booster coincided with the asset’s breakout to six‑figure territory. The former PayPal executive had become a key amplifier for legislative pushes on Capitol Hill, publicly thanking Senate Agriculture Committee leaders after a narrow 12‑11 vote advanced a flagship market‑structure bill and calling the decision “one step closer to establishing the necessary regulatory framework to make the United States the capital of the crypto world.” For now, traders on prediction markets appear divided: users on one such venue currently assign a roughly 64% probability that Bitcoin’s next big move is down to $55,000 rather than up to $84,000, suggesting that in the absence of clear policy stewards like Sacks, price discovery will be driven more by macro cross‑currents than by the White House alone.
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