Crypto under weekend pressure, bitcoin slides below $80,000 on U.S. Middle East evacuations

The U.S. is quickly evacuating personnel from embassies and military bases throughout the Middle East as intelligence suggests Iran is prepping attacks against Americans, the WSJ reported Saturday morning.

“Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel,” wrote Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, in a Friday memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”

These evacuations appear to go well beyond reports from earlier this week that the U.S. was ordering some diplomatic staff in Saudi Arabia to vacate.

President Trump, meanwhile, has threatened a re-escalation in the war against Iran after the midterms in early November. “We may do another little ‘Epic Fury,’” Trump said at a rally in Florida on Friday.

Crypto prices are sinking to multi-week lows, with bitcoin now down by 2.2% over the past 24 hours to $79,700. Ether, XRP, and solana are down in the 3%-4% range.