Bitcoin brushes $80,000, then claws back to $82,000 as Trump rules out an Iran strike before the midterms

Bitcoin came within a few hundred dollars of $80,000 on Thursday before pulling back from the edge. The price dropped to about $80,300, its lowest since September, and was back near $82,000 by late evening Eastern time, CoinDesk reported.

The morning's slide tracked oil. Brent crude climbed to nearly $106 a barrel after reports by Axios and NBC News that the Pentagon was preparing for possible new strikes on Iran. The 30-year Treasury yield reached 5.73%, a 24-year high, according to Cointelegraph.

Then President Trump weighed in. At 12:17 p.m. Eastern he posted on Truth Social: "We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd." US crude, which had touched $93.20, eased and finished at $91.49, still up 3.6% on the day, Kiplinger reported. Selling in bitcoin stopped near $80,300 after the post, according to CoinDesk.

Stocks had a second problem. The Nasdaq Composite closed down about 1.3% after the Financial Times reported that OpenAI's annualized revenue was about $20 billion below earlier reports. Bitcoin miners were hit hard: Hut 8 fell 10.7% and Cipher Mining 9.1%, CoinDesk reported. At the day's lows, ether and XRP were down about 6% and Solana 9%.

About $974 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data cited by Yahoo Finance.

What to watch: Saturday is the anniversary of the October 10, 2025 flash crash, when bitcoin fell from about $122,000 to $105,000. Vikram Subburaj, chief executive of the exchange Giottus, told CoinDesk that $81,000 is the level to watch, with $80,000 and then about $77,200 below it.