Bitcoin falls below $80K as US evacuates Middle East staff

Bitcoin dropped below $80,000 on Saturday, Oct. 24, trading around $79,700, down about 2.2% in 24 hours and at its weakest level in more than a month, CoinDesk reported. Ether, XRP and solana fell by roughly 3% to 4% over the same period.

What set it off

The sell-off followed a Wall Street Journal report on Saturday morning that the United States is quickly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases across the Middle East, as intelligence suggests Iran is preparing attacks on Americans.

• In a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton wrote that Iran "has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel", according to the report.
• The evacuations appear to go well beyond reports earlier in the week that some diplomatic staff in Saudi Arabia were being told to leave.
• At a rally in Florida on Friday, President Donald Trump raised the prospect of renewed strikes on Iran after the early-November midterms.

How we got here

The geopolitical risk has been building all week. On Friday bitcoin briefly slipped under $81,000 as Brent crude hit $116 a barrel, its highest since March, which we covered in bitcoin slips under $81K as oil jumps. US spot bitcoin ETFs also turned October negative after about $635 million of outflows on Thursday (details here).

Saturday's move takes BTC below the $80,000–$81,500 band that roughly matches the average purchase price of US spot ETF buyers, a level traders had flagged as support. Weekend sessions are also typically thinner than weekdays, because traditional markets and ETFs are closed, so headline-driven moves can be sharper.

What to watch

• Any official US statement on the evacuations or on Iran, and the oil price when futures reopen on Sunday evening.
• ETF flows on Monday, the first chance for fund investors to react.
• Whether BTC can reclaim $80,000 or keeps sliding toward the $78,000–$80,000 range some analysts had already named as support.

The price snapshot above is captured when this page is built. If you are weighing an ETF against holding coins yourself, see our guide to bitcoin ETFs vs buying bitcoin. This is market news, not investment advice.